Hotel Lossi Saaremaa

After a four hour journey from Tallinn (Including a wee ferry trip!!) I was in Kuressaare, the capital of Saaremaa Island. Upon arrival it appeared to be a slightly dusty and unfriendly town, but after finding a place to drop my stuff and go out for a further wonder, my opinion changed completely I can see how easy it would be to just stay here... (Incidentally ...

Saaremaa really is 'old Estonia'. A sizeable island off the north west coast, just south of Finland, during Russian occupation the island was 'off limits' and as a result the island has changed little for decades. It really does have the beautiful deserted beaches and the roads through forests where you can drive for an hour or two and not see a soul. And very good mud ...

We took a small small road as it was evening and time to stop. We saw an even smaller road and Mara went to have a look. She came back happily waving her hands, it was a dream of a campplace at the sea-side: and old little harbour with a bench and a fireplace.

We'll be very short about Hiiumaa: it was raining cats and dogs the whole day and we decided to use this day to travel on to Saaremaa. By evening we arrived at an out-of-this-world beach with orchids and underneath a thick pack of clouds... a sunset. Unbelieveable.

... Russian to me, a very happy person. He got a bucket of water out of his old old well, very good water. By that time I was replying to him in Dutch, fun to have a conversation like this. I'll never forget him and his farm, if you want to see farm-life like it was some sixty years ago, go there. We feel sorry now that we didn't accept his invitation to have a beer. . Day two ...

... it would've been the most exciting part of the day!

For dinner, we went to a tavern located inside of an old windmill. It was a pretty atmospheric place that served pretty good stuff. We couldn't finish the huge portions, but I guess we shouldn't have ordered soups to start. We took a quick walk before heading back to the guesthouse, where we watched an ultra-lame horror flick - Final Destination.

... to the TI for a map. We went to a car rental place to book something for tomorrow, but they had none available. We'll try at another place in the morning ... hopefully we can find a car - otherwise, we're in for a long, boring day tomorrow.

Off to the castle - it was closed today. I wasn't too disappointed as it didn't look terribly exciting. We were still able to wander around the grassy area on the ...

... pro cyclist like me to have to deal with this amateur ****). In the afternoon, we looked long and hard (over 20 km or so) for a Dolomite factory (which was supposed to be super cute and authentic) but unfortunately only found ourselves down several gravel (grrrrr...) roads and into dolomite quarries, one of which we got locked in by the worker who left after we biked in. Arrival in Kuresaare was extra early (6 PM), just ...

... that each section wasn't in English but they gave you a separate sheet to read. I found somewhere in each room to sit to ease my full belly and was pleased when there was a short film too. I walked up to the library and around a craft fair. I could only use the Internet in the library for 15 minutes for free. Everyone else seemed to be on for 30 minutes so I took a little longer too. I headed back to get my bag. The guy was very worried about how heavy it ...

... who had family on that ferry. Tagaranna has a lot to offer : wonderful beaches, nice cliffs (Ninase Pank), large forests and some strange windmills like the Old Man and Old Woman (the woman got burned down recently). Piret went back to Kuressaare with our luggage (we would spend the night at her uncle's) and Claudia and I took our time to walk in the forests. When we were ...