Saaremaa...Free Day
Monday
The morning showed promise as it was
not raining, warm and even breaks in the clouds for the sun to shine
through. After another hearty breakfast we boarded the mini van
for the trip into Kuressaare for the day.
Kuressaare Castle |
Neveyana, our guide, took us on a short orientation walk to the castle. From this point people had several options, some went bike riding, some went to the spa others walked. We chose to explore the medieval castle. The outside had a large moat and inside It was a winding myriad of hallways, stairwells and rooms. Even with a map we weren't always able to figure out where we were exactly. The displays were very well done and followed a chronological order except for the 1940s decade. We finally asked where this part was and a lady took us to a small hallway behind a red curtain!! We had assumed this was a no- go area because of the curtain but that was not so.
The Estonian history is very
interesting and disturbing.....it has been fought over and taken over
for hundreds of years...Sweden, Finland, Russia German.......the most
disturbing is just in the last 100 years....in 1918 -1920 Estonia
declared itself an independence country, only to be taken over by
Russia again in 1920 to 1940 when the Germans came in during WWII,
immediately after the Germans left the Russians came back. In 1988
there was a revolution...a singing revolution, over 300,000 Estonians
gathered in the Song Festival Gardens to sing patriotic
songs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA9PmZo-2jo&noredirect=1 .....August 23 1989 about 2 million people from all three of
the Baltic states joined hands in a chain, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Way from Tallin Estonia to
Vilnius Lithuania, about 600 km to make a stand against the
communist regime. In 1993 the last of the Russian troops left the
island of Saaremaa.
Leaving the castle area we walked along along the seawall for a while and then headed off for a cache. Wandering through a residential area we came to a walking/ running track that is used for cross country skiing in winter. The cache was in a unique setting, but we found it. We worked our way back to the city centre in time for lunch.
Can you see the cache? |
While eating our pancakes, we noticed a small street where vendors had small booths set up. A beautiful handknit sweater was calling to Pam...it looks great on her! Took some time to explore a few more streets before picking up some dinner supplies and catching a taxi back to the farm.
Time to repack the suitcases in anticipation of the drive to Tallin tomorrow. Dinner finished, off to check emails and watch part of the soccer game and create the blog, then to bed.
B.C. playground equipment? |
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