Just as we were about to tuck ourselves in last night, I checked the Aurora forecast on a whim to see if anything was happening. It was showing a KP index of 6 which is moderately high, and it showed our location in a possible band of areas where an aurora sighting might be possible. It was 1230 at night, but I suited up to assess the situation. I figured my only possible option was to scale the ramparts of the nearby castle as it would get me away from most of the lights and give me a little bit of elevation.
I saw a bit of pink off to the north which seemed too bright to be remnants of a sunset that occurred hours earlier, so I pointed my camera in that direction and maybe captured a bit of green hue to the left of the frame as well. Meh. I guess it’s something, but I’m not ready to tick that northern lights checkbox off yet. While I was there I also paid a visit to my old friend, the windmill.
Morning came fast and we got ourselves some fancy pastries and rolls at a place called Bôns Pagaristuudio. They were fresh and delicious. One of mine had Nutella in it. We naturally ate them outside on our balcony to show off to any passersby.
After digesting a bit, we set forth to the south to the far end of the island of Saaremaa to Sorve. There is a lighthouse there and is one of the must-sees of the island. You can apparently climb up to the top of the lighthouse in the tourist season, which has not yet begun. We were fine at ground level — enjoying another day in sunny Estonia.
It was about 30 minutes to get to and from the lighthouse from our residence in Kuressaare. On the way, we stopped at a small Soviet cemetery in Tehumardi. It marks the location of the bloodiest battle on Saaremaa when the Soviet Red Army launched a large scale amphibious assault to retake the island from the Nazis. It resulted in fierce hand-to-hand fighting. The memorial is now a hot topic of debate along with several others like it throughout Estonia. The public have agreed to let it remain since this specific one has headstones and remains, but have taken issue with the Soviet inscription that the Red Army “liberated” the island. After captured by the Red Army, the island became effectively off limits to normal Estonians until 1991. Tourism, therefore, is a relatively new experience on this island.
Once back at our residence, we gathered further provisions from a supermarket to sustain us as a lunch. We have noticed here that most self checkouts in the Baltics are notoriously inefficient, perhaps another holdover from the communist era. Nicole was trying to buy two bananas which were individually priced, yet she had to weigh them to get a sticker and a barcode. I had picked up a strudel, which must be one of the key ingredients in meth because it required the associate to run it back to the bakery and verify that it in fact was a strudel.
After a wee bit of relaxing, we had one last stop at the Panga cliff. It is the highest cliff on all of Saaremaa! Watch out! It is a not very staggering 20m high, though this is apparently high enough to act as a place where humans were sacrificed to the sea in ancient times. Signage was poor. And the parking lot was on top of the cliffs in a position where you couldn’t really see the cliffs because you are on them.
There was eventually a rope that one could sort of descend down to the base of the cliffs. I was underwhelmed. I took about two pictures and climbed back up the rope and we walked back to the car. We did make one brief stop on our way out to look at some rocks and birds before driving 30 minutes back to our place.
For dinner, we went to the Saaremaa Veski/Windmill Restaurant. We each got some steak and local ales. Mine was made with rye. Nicole got a porter. In the shade, the temperature plummets quite rapidly. We each were wearing fleece-type attire, though no one else seemed to have a chill. A local gentleman in shorts and a t-shirt came over to ask us if we could take his group’s picture. He and his mates thought we were from Spain for some reason, a common supposition for Bricole no matter where we are. Regardless, he was a bit perplexed as to why two people from California would end up in Estonia . . .and Saaremaa at that. Again, we do seem to get this question a lot as well. And perhaps that means we are doing it right — getting off the overly trodden tourist path a bit.
Tomorrow we have to drive back to the ferry and work our way over to Tallinn, where we will get rid of our rental car for the remainder of our trip. It will be an early start to make sure we are able to do the rental car drop off on time. From here on out, we are in cities, so our countryside and small town experience is coming to a close. Perhaps that’s ok. The amount of bugs and allergens that assaulted us today was more than enough.
passports & pepto bismol 