Baltic Road Trip

Zadar: The First Stop on Our Balkans Road Trip Through Croatia, Slovenia, & Bosnia and Herzegovina

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Peering down at the shimmering cobalt and turquoise blue water of the Adriatic Sea relieved the previous day’s anxiety of nearly missed connections. We encountered a long delay at passport control in Paris, before catching our connecting early morning flight to Zadar.

This temporary reprieve was short lived though, as we were confronted with a shuttered rental car window at the Sicily By Car booth, directly across from the small Zadar terminal. It was a Sunday morning – maybe the service at church ran long, or the coffee and pastries at the café were particularly delicious; nevertheless, the other passengers on our early morning flight who had rented with other agencies were long gone. At the terminal’s outdoor café we sipped coffee, waited, and discussed whether or not to cancel our existing reservation.  An hour passed before a car parked behind the booth, and the shuttered window was noisily cranked open. A pleasant young woman greeted us, and the morning’s delay was forgotten. Years ago, we began the habit of asking attendants at the rental car counters for suggestions to non-touristy places to eat. It appears it’s an unusual request from a customer, but folks seem pleased that we sincerely ask for their opinion. “Let me think on that, and by the time paperwork is done and I show you the car, my colleague and I will have some ideas for you.” With the names of three restaurants and a patisserie, “you should definitely try,” we headed off to see waterfalls at Skradinski Buk National Park in a nearly new small SUV, an upgrade from what we had reserved. The park was our first stop on our three-week long Croatian road trip, before our late afternoon check-in at an apartment rental in old town Zadar later.

The sunny April morning was now overcast as we drove into the small village of Benković to see its hilltop castle, and indulge our “drive a little, then café,” philosophy. Unfortunately, the castle was closed and the town seemed deserted in the pre-tourist season. Down the lane from the castle fig trees were setting their fruit and the first flowers of Spring were blooming. The café remained an unfulfilled desire.

We love traveling during the shoulder seasons to avoid the crowds of summer. But one of the drawbacks is fewer, if any, restaurants/cafes are open, especially in the more rural areas.

The drive to the park along Rt56 was semi-desolate, but pretty in an austere way, and passed through Croatia’s garigue shrublands, olive groves, and pine forests. From the road as we drove past Skradin, we could see large charter yachts at their winter moorings on the Krka River, two miles from the sea, sheltering there from fierce Adriatic storms, as they waited for the warmer cruising season to start.  Across the river the road zigged and zagged up the mountainside before leveling off on a high plateau.

Following the signs to the national park we drove down a side road which passed a sprawling abandoned factory site, fronted with several concrete military bunkers. They were relics from the Cold War era like the ones that dot the landscape in Albania. Built in the 1930s, the IVANAL d.o.o. plant was the Balkans region’s first state-of-the-art aluminum processing complex that employed 400 people. It was confiscated by Czechoslovakia’s communist regime in the 1940’s and never upgraded or maintained. Over the decades production fell until the plant was closed after Croatia’s independence in 1991.

The parking lot at the national park was very full, considering it was a chilly Spring Sunday, but the queue at the ticket booth moved quickly. While the falls are quite a distance downhill from the entrance to the park, some folks chose to walk a route through the forest to forage for the wild asparagus that sprouts along its path from March to May.

We opted for a ticket that included a shuttle bus ride to the largest waterfall, Skradinski Buk, at the bottom of a series of equally impressive waterfalls on the Krka River, then a walk back upstream along the waterway to another shuttlebus stop for a return ride to the top of the park entrance plateau. During the summer months the national park also offers a scenic twenty-minute boat ride from the harbor in Skradin,to the base of Skradinski Buk.

The overcast day was actually the perfect weather condition to photograph the waterfalls without heavy shadows or bright highlights, and the falls were thundering, foaming with the snowmelt from the Dinaric Alps, which run through the coastal Balkans region.

Along the way, we stopped at several restored watermills, with their mill races still intact. They were used primarily to grind locally harvested grain into flour, and to wash processed wool. A blacksmith shop also used a waterwheel to drive its furnace bellows to keep the fire hot enough to work the iron, and to power the heavy trip hammers the smith used to shape tools.

A serpentine elevated wooden walkway, without guardrails, twisted through groves of flooded forest, and kept us dry as the spring runoff rushed below us. It’s important to be aware of your footing in these circumstances, and we always waited at a wider part of the walkway for other folks to pass when the boardwalk was too narrow, to avoid fulfilling my mental image of being swept away down the rapids.

Unlike tourist sites in the United States, where everything is fenced to protect us from injury, in Europe you are expected to be responsible for yourself, and aware of your surroundings to guard against mishaps. We thoroughly enjoyed the waterfalls. We don’t see them in the coastal area at home, since we live nearly at sea level.

Zadar protrudes into the Adriatic, on a small peninsula, like a thumbs up sign, its once rough coastline now manicured with a sidewalk that follows its waterfront. Parking was challenging, but after circling the old town twice, we found a metered space near the Apartments Donat, our base for three nights. The rooms in the restored 700-year-old building were small. But the location, on a small lane overlooking the Cathedral of St. Anastasia and the Church of St. Donatus, was very convenient.

The manager of the building, who didn’t live on site, kindly made his parking space, next to the building, available to us for the duration of our stay. While having a rental car provides a lot of freedom, the typical 20 euro daily expense of parking in Europe can quickly add up. It’s not always possible, but we try to stay in hotels that provide free parking when we can.

Later that day we walked along the waterfront to Obala Petra Krešimira, a jetty that was being battered by whipping winds and crashing waves, which lifted large sprays of water over anyone brave or foolish enough to venture out onto it.

Nearby, in front of Zadar’s City Hall was Morske Orgulje, the Sea Organ, an experimental architectural sound installation designed by the architect Nikola Bašić and completed in 2005 to refurbish Zadar’s waterfront which had been neglected since the end of World War Two. The design incorporates polyethylene organ pipes under the marble stairs that lead down to the water. The motion of the waves continuously forces air through these pipes to create a “harmonic symphony crested by the wind, waves, and tides,” that is vented through the rise of the steps. Visually it’s a flat surface, but as we walked across the plaza the ethereal music faded in and out moodily with the motion of the turbulent sea.

The Greeting to the Sun, a solar-powered light installation also designed by Bašić, was a short distance away, closer to the tip of the peninsula. It’s a 22m (72ft) wide disc composed of 300 multi-layered glass plates, embedded into the plaza, which you can walk across. The panels absorb solar energy during the day to turn the disk into a colorful light display in the evening.

We hoped the storm clouds would begin to break apart so we could catch a scene from the spot that “Alfred Hitchcock once declared during a 1964 visit to the city as having “the most beautiful sunsets in the world.”  Alas, during our stay in Zadar the mornings were sunny, the afternoons cloudy, and our sunsets stormy and grey.

The next morning, we set out to properly explore the town, first stopping at the Roman Effigies, a collection of column sections and decorated capitals from the ancient Roman Forum, which stood in the area of Piazza Papa Giovanni Paolo (Pope John Paul II Square). The plaza itself was built over Zadar’s 16th century water cistern.

The piazza located next to the 9th-century Church of St. Donatus and the 11th-century Benedictine Monastery of St. Maria is the center point for the northern end of Zadar. The historic buildings did not open until later in the morning, so we continued down Zadar’s narrow lanes, enjoying the fragrance of orange blossoms while we strolled to Pekara Dalmatinka – Old Town Bakery, a recommendation from our friend at the car rental agency.

On the way, something piqued our curiosity down a narrower side alley and we detoured. There in a small workshop a craftsman was applying gold leaf to a frame. We appreciate old-world talents like this, and I asked in English, and gestured with my cell phone, if I could take a photo of him working. All was lost in translation and the man suddenly walked out, only to return a few minutes with his son who spoke English, and we chatted for a minute. Apparently, few tourists ever poked their heads into the workshop; the frame he was gilding was for a church, and his dad is a busy man, but it is okay to take his picture.

It’s a mistake to arrive hungry to a bakery that confronts you with a display case featuring mouthwatering Croatian pastries. We drooled over Kremšnita, custard cream cake; Madarica, a layered chocolate cake; Makovnjača & Orehnjača, a rolled dough pastry filled with walnuts or poppy seeds; Princes Krafne, a doughnut stuffed with luscious cream; Splitska Torta, a cake with layers of meringue, cream, almonds and figs; and of course Börek, a delicious, coiled phyllo dough pastry filled with feta cheese or spinach.

We planned to walk off our over-indulgence, and headed through Trg Pet Bunara, the Five Wells Square, to find a bench in Queen Jelena Madijevka Park. Tree branches laden with purple flowers hung over the decorative railing at the entrance to the park, which sits atop the city’s old bastion, next to the ancient Venetian Land Gate, and was the perfect spot for a morning picnic.  Built in 1573, it replaced an old Roman gate, and featured a relief of the Winged Lion of St. Mark, the symbol of the Venetian Empire, to celebrate a naval victory over the Turks. From our bench we watched a boat enter the small harbor in front of Zadar’s ancient defensive wall, a continuous activity since Zadar’s founding.

The ancient walls and gates around the city were first built by the Romans and then expanded upon by the Venetians in the 16th and 17th centuries, to defend the city from multiple attacks by the Ottoman Empire.

Several of the ancient gates still stand and allow passage from the old town to the ferry harbor. The top of the ramparts over the gates have been incorporated into a scenic walkway that parallels the waterfront and provides a pretty vantage point to view all the maritime activity, and some vignettes of old town Zadar.

Along this walk we spotted a younger man rowing a small boat with passengers across the narrow harbor, from a small lighthouse to a staired landing on the quay. Apparently, they were on the way to work and his service, like the traghetto in Venice, provided a shortcut. A sign we discovered the next day listed the fee as 2€.

Over the years the population of Zadar has sprawled into new buildings on the mainland, unlike Dubrovnik, which has been gentrified into a theme park. Old Town Zadar, on the other hand, has some newer buildings on its peninsula, but also has many that show the patina of age, and give the town an authenticity and delightful ambience.

Our sunny morning was threatened with rain by noon, so we headed into the Archaeological Museum, where they have an interesting and diverse collection of ancient artifacts, statuary, and busts unearthed in Zadar, from its pre-history through the Roman Era and Venetian times. Especially unusual was the collection of Neolithic Rhytons, a  four-legged ceramic ritual vessel, from the Impresso and Danilo cultures.

From the museum there is a good view of the Church of St. Donatus, and the belltower of Sainte Anastasie across from the ruins of the Roman forum. We’d pass these landmarks multiple times during our stay.

Fortunately, we did have good raincoats, and we scurried to Kavana Centar, a very nice café several blocks away that had some indoor tables still available and offered a reprieve from the rain. Located away from the main square, its menu was very budget friendly.

Though the rain had not stopped, folks continued on with their plans, and soon umbrellas were out everywhere.  After lunch, we headed back to St. Donatus, an unusual tall round cylinder-shaped church built during the 9th century in a pre-Romanesque style. Much of its construction utilized the ruins of the old Roman Forum, upon which it was built.

The fragments of reused columns, capitals, plinths, and cornices were used as fill, and can be seen in several exposed spots along the church’s foundation and interior. Its mammoth interior is 27m (89ft) tall, and at the top is a gallery that overlooks the space below.

The church was deconsecrated in the early 1700s, after which it was unceremoniously used as a wine cellar, warehouse, and Zadar’s first archaeological museum in the early 1900s. Nowadays, along with being a tourist site, it hosts theMusical Evenings at St Donatus, a concert series that utilizes the church’s excellent acoustics, every July.

The Campanile di Sant’Anastasia, the belltower of the Cathedral of St Anastasia and its monastery, is right next to St. Donatus. The campanile was added to the church in the 15th century, four centuries after the church and its monastery were completed. During the high season it’s possible to climb the 186 steps to the top of the 55m (180ft) tall tower for a panoramic view of the city and sea. But unfortunately, in early April it was closed when we visited. Surprisingly, the entrance to the cathedral is on the other end of the building, around the corner from the belltower, and took us a few minutes to figure out its location.

The interior of the Romanesque style church features an open timber truss roof, interesting side altars, an ancient fresco featuring what is believed to be a likeness of the saint, and the remnants of a 13th century mosaic floor, which I almost accidentally fell on, after losing my balance on the uneven stone flooring.

We could only imagine the uproar that would have ensued if I had damaged the antiquity. We wondered if our travel insurance would be of any use in this situation.

There are numerous other churches in old town Zadar. Choosing several churches and connecting the dots between them we found was a good way to see the various neighborhoods on the peninsula.

One of our favorites was the Crkva Gospe od Zdravlja, the Church of Our Lady of Health, set on the edge of a small park. Its small intimate interior was often visited by folks on their way to work in the morning.

Over the course of our wanderings past random buildings, down narrow alleys, and in dim courtyards, we found examples of the many different architectural styles that have graced the city over the centuries.

On our last night in Zadar, we drove off the peninsula to another recommended restaurant, Batak Zadar, located in a shopping center, far away from the tourist zone. We ordered several of their Croatian classics, and a local red wine. Everything was very good, and an excellent value compared to the inflated pricing of the restaurants in old town Zadar.

Though the weather could have been more cooperative, we enjoyed our three-night stay in Zadar, and found the size of the charming city just right for a short stay before the start our three-week road trip through Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Till next time,

Craig & Donna             

Driving Through the Baltics: Part 11 – Lake Peipus or Old Believers, Onions, and Honey

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Gently undulating farmlands soon flanked the road as we departed Tartu for a day trip to the Old Believers villages that dot the southern shoreline of Lake Peipus, Estonia’s largest lake which creates part of the country’s border with Russia. The villages are also part of the Onion Route, a 30km (19mi) tourist drive that promotes the area’s culture and “Estonia’s most celebrated onions, the Peipsi sibul, a golden variety known for their long storage life and flavor,” which the Old Believers have cultivated in the sandy soil of the region for several centuries.

The group’s name stems from a schism with the Russian Orthodox Church in the 17th century, in which they did not abide with the reforms Orthodox clergy patriarchates were initiating, and wow, wow, wow regarded the reforms which curled the beards of its elders, “as a corruption of their faith which was heralding the End of Days, and as such the Russian church and state were servants of the Antichrist.” Their dissent wasn’t allowed, and during The Russian Orthodox Synod of 1666-1667 the church and Tsar Alexis sanctioned their persecution. The group’s oppression was so severe that some ardent followers self-immolated in the ultimate act of protest. Thousands of Old Believers chose to escape their persecution and fled across Lake Peipus for refuge, and established a series of farming and fishing communities, in then Swedish-controlled Estonia, in which they prided themselves on their self-sufficiency.

We passed more farm tractors than cars that morning, but it was still a surprise when a large John Deere tractor pulled up alongside us in the gas station to refuel. Varnja is the southernmost village and the gateway to outdoor activities in the Peipsiveere Nature Reserve, which protects the fish and wildlife of the Emajõgi delta.

It’s a beautiful area, and was nearly deserted mid-week at the beginning of October. Fishing was once a viable livelihood, but only a few boats go out nowadays. Instead, some folks have converted them into niche rentals, like the owners of Mesi Tare who have creatively repurposed several small boats into maritime bungalows, both floating and permanently beached.

There wasn’t a soul about in the village, only an idle tractor in front of a barn with bundles of onions hanging from its rafters, or a plume of smoke from a chimney, and the lone dog sunning obliviously in the middle of the lane. Winter preparations were underway with large free-standing globe shaped piles of freshly split wood stacked along the lane or piled in cords neatly along the sides of houses.

As we left the hamlet and headed north on Kesk Tn, the main road connecting all the settlements along the lake, we stopped at Varnja’s Old Believers Prayer House, a red brick structure built between 1928 and 1930, and the nearby Issanda Templisseviimise, the town’s youngest Old Believers chapel constructed in 2015.

As we headed farther north, long narrow inlets, like the fingers on our hands, stretched from the roadside into the lake. Baskets, bowls and buckets of apples were in front of homes with backyard orchards that had what is commonly called in Estonia, “the apple flood.” This abundance is shared with the community, and the apples are free. It’s a long-standing tradition that reflects a spirit of sharing and generosity within Estonian culture. Occasionally, an abandoned stork’s nest crowned a telephone pole along the road, their yearly winter migration to southern Africa had already started in August.

We turned off the main road at every sign that pointed to the way to a kirk, church. The Kasepää Old Believers Church and Cemetery were particularly interesting.  The current 1862 sanctuary sits atop the foundation of a building that is thought to be the site of one of the group’s earliest churches after their exodus from Russia. Graves in the cemetery were marked with the traditional three horizontal-bar Orthodox cross. The configuration dates from the 6th century in which the Top Bar represents the inscription ordered by Pontius Pilate, The Middle Bar, the main beam where Christ’s hands were nailed, and Bottom Slanted Bar symbolizes the footrest and its slant reflects the fate of the two thieves crucified alongside Jesus – upward towards the repentant thief (St. Dismas) and downward towards the unrepentant one.

In Kolkja, a village first mentioned in historical records of 1592, we climbed the Vaatetorn bird-watching tower for an expansive view across the marshes and 3,555km2 (1,373 sq mi) Lake Peipus. The 219km (136mi) long lake has an average width of 82km (51mi), and is surprisingly very shallow, with an average depth of 7m (23ft). At its northern end the lake feeds into the Narva River between the Estonian border city of Narva and the Russian city of Ivangorod into the Gulf of Finland. Ice fishing is a popular winter activity on the lake which typically stays frozen from November to March. Small ice flows remain on the northern part of the lake until early May. Though with the recent climate change folks living along Lake Peipus have noticed a shortening of the ice season.

Afterwards, we stopped at Suur-Kolkja Vanausuliste Palvemaja, an Old Believers house of worship that was constructed in 1883, and its cemetery which was down the lane.

As we left the village an enterprising older woman, with a babushka covering her head, was unloading bags of onions, loaves of bread, and jars of jam from the trunk of a taxi and arranging them on a foldable card table she had already set up along the road. We had assumed the area was nearly deserted, but maybe there was an end-of-day rush hour as people returned home from work.

Although several museums, cafes and restaurants were shown on Google Maps, they were only open on the weekends during shoulder season. Our search for coffee took us to the larger town of Alatskivi, where we were able to satisfy our “drive a little, then café,” philosophy with a good lunch at Kivi kõrts, a bright eclectically decorated tavern, including a restroom decorated in a quirky theme.

We drove farther to Kallaste, a still larger village on the shore of Lake Peipus, but were discouraged from investigating the town in depth by the number of roadwork closures that hindered our travel.

On our return route to Tartu we passed through Alatskivi again and purchased honey from an automated vending machine near beehives in front of a local beekeeper’s home. We enjoy the simplest of things and found this combination of ancient practice and modern technology delightful. The machine even accepted credit cards.

At the roundabout in town, we circled twice to figure out how to reach the town’s library, which had a large wooden sculpture of two hands, with fingers carved from tree trunks, protruding from the ground in front of the building.

Earlier, the server at the tavern suggested we visit Alatskivi Castle,an old Baltic German feudal estate with vast land holdings, that was first mentioned in the historical records of the early 1600s. In 1885 Baron Arved von Nolcken, a widely traveled aristocrat, purchased the estate and reconstructed the old manor house in a Scottish baronial style, that is said to closely resemble Balmoral Castle, which he had recently visited. The von Nolcken family lived in the manor house for twenty years before they left for Germany with all their possessions, including the manor’s silk wallpaper, at the beginning of the Estonian Peasant Revolution in 1905. During the Soviet occupation of Estonia the lands of the estate were a state-controlled collective farm, and the castle was used as school, cinema, and library. Today, after extensive renovations the manor features a fine-dining restaurantand 4 suites available for booking directly through the castle, along with offering  a ceramic studio and workshop in the cellar. There is also a wax museum featuring figures of the manor’s servants; a butler, lady’s maid, cook, baker, groomsman, stable hands, and laundry maid are just a few of the various trades depicted. The exterior of the castle is totally white, and during the winter, with snow on the ground, must shine brilliantly on a sunny day. Or vanish totally from view during an Estonian tuiskav lumi, a blizzard. We wondered – if the walls of the castle could speak, what tales would they tell?

We had a great time exploring the cultures and complex histories of Estonia, Latvia, and regrettably only a small part of Lithuania during our three week-long road trip through these fascinating Baltic countries.

Till next time,

Craig & Donna

Driving Through the Baltics: Part 10 – Tartu, Estonia or Wandering through a University Town

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The street was alive with activity. Three buskers with drum, sax, and tuba were jazzily rendering Bruno Mars’ “Marry You” on the pedestrian mall full of folks strolling and bicyclists weaving amidst a food fair and participants readying their wacky go-cart entries for a Red Bull event later that afternoon.

There’s a long tradition in Estonia of student rock bands in the 70s and 80s transcribing western songs heard via Radio Free Europe broadcasts to countries behind the “Iron Curtain,” including Estonia. Soviet censors viewed any foreign influence, especially rock ’n roll as a threat to communist ideology, and these street musicians were upholding a long-standing musical tradition.

Tartu has been a university town since the 17th-century, and today 14,000 students give the city, Estonia’s second largest with only a population of 104,000, an energetic youthful vibe. They are an important part of the town’s character and are playfully acknowledged on the café-lined cobblestone plaza in front of Tartu’s City Hall with the ‘The Kissing Students’ sculpture and fountain.

The University of Tartu’s students also played a crucial role in Estonia’s expression of national identity and resistance to Soviet rule in the late 1980’s. Their support of the “Five Patriotic Songs” by Alo Mattiisen led to spontaneous mass singing demonstrations at the Tartu Pop Festival in May 1988. These musical protests spread to Tallin, then Latvia and Lithuania. These peaceful protests culminated in the The Baltic Way, a human chain of two million people which spanned from Tallinn, Estonia to Vilnius, Lithuania in August of 1989. The popularity of these peaceful movements strengthened the determination of Estonians to redeclare their independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Latvia and Lithuania followed suit soon after.

The Kissing Students’ fountain is really the center of activity in Tartu, a splendidly walkable city. Its car-free center extends north along Küüni tn from the modern Kvartal shopping mall, with an array of nice shops, and an excellent Coop supermarket, past the central plaza all the way to the Botanical Garden of the University of Tartu. And there were numerous points of interest just off this route that we explored during our five-night stay at the Art Hotel Pallas, a boutique hotel nicely located across from the Kvartal mall, with views from our hotel room of the spires atop the town’s city hall and churches. It also had convenient free parking, and a scrumptious breakfast buffet. The pickled herring, yes for breakfast, was really good. It was the perfect spot to get some much-needed R&R after driving through Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania for three weeks.

One of the nicest things we’ve encountered during our road trip through the Baltics is the extensive amount of public art that graces the region’s cities and small towns. Few are of a historical nature. The sculptures of Lenin and Stalin that the Soviet Union installed during their fifty years of occupation to erase the Estonia’s history were quickly removed from all public spaces, and sent to the scrap yard. The current sculptures now honor influential writers, poets, and folk heroes or are simply artistic inspirations without any political messaging.

Along Küüni there was a sculpture of Irish playwright Oscar Wilde and Estonian writer Eduard Vilde depicted in an imaginary encounter between the literary heavyweights. Though the two never met, Wilde did give a lecture at the university in 1892.

Nearby was the sculpture “Father and Son,” by the Tartu native Ülo Õun (1944-1988). The Visit Tartu website explains the work represents the sculptor with his 18-month-old son, and “is a symbol of the relationship between different generations, where children are increasingly growing apart from their parents.” A side note – the Visit Tartu website has an extensive calendar of events page. In a park they had a pop-up information tent, and detrimentally to our waistlines, it was across from the Kalev Chocolate Shop and cookie store. This Estonian brand makes, in our opinion, some of the best store-bought snacks. You can buy them in grocery stores across the Baltics, but they surprisingly cost less in their own stores.

A diagonal walk through the park took us to Tartu Turuhoone, the town’s old market hall where a large sculpture of “Siga Roosi,” a pig, advertises the building’s entrance and the products available inside. If you have visited Riga’s large market, this wanes in comparison, but the pig immortalized in bronze appears to be smiling.

From here a very pleasant walk along the riverfront promenade that follows the Emajõgi River leads to the Kaarsild, an arched footbridge that spans the river to Ülejõe Park and the neighborhoods east of the historic center.

The approach to the bridge was a perfect spot to admire the beautiful buildings surrounding the town’s plaza which represent an eclectic assortment of architectural styles from the 13th to 17th centuries, when the town was a prominent member of the Hanseatic Merchant League.

At the foot of the plaza the Tartu Kunstimuuseum, a museum of art, occupies a 1793 building that is often referred to as Tartu’s Tower of Pisa. The three-story building’s 5.8 degree of tilt is actually greater than the famous tower in Italy. The tilt was a result of one side of the building being constructed on the medieval footing of the ancient defensive wall that once encircled the town, and the other side was erected above loose soil. As the decades passed, the structure slowly sank into the ground. Polish engineers successfully stabilized the building during the communist era, and it was determined safe enough to house the museum since 1988.

In the other direction there was the reflection of the growing city’s modern skyline reflected on the rippling water of the river. These views were beautiful and equally enchanting in the early evening twilight as we watched the murmurations of European starlings swooping over the river, before they noisily roosted in the park.

Just behind Town Hall and across from a large street mural of the University of Tartu was café/restaurantWerner, an excellent establishment with a nice vibe, that’s popular with both students and professionals; we dined there several times during our stay in the city.

Afterwards we took the long uphill walk to the ruins of Tartu’s immense 13th century cathedral, now on the grounds of the University of Tartu. Construction of the Gothic style church started shortly after the Brothers of the Sword subjugated the pagan tribes around Tartu in the early 1200s and lasted nearly 400 years before it was destroyed during the Livonian Wars that ravished the region. It was never rebuilt.

We chose not to, but it’s possible to climb its towers to a viewing platform above the ruins for a panoramic view of the school’s campus and Tartu. The choir end of the cathedral has been restored and since 1981 houses The University of Tartu Museum.

Heading back to the old town we passed under the Angel Bridge, built in 1838 to ease students’ efforts getting across campus. The scenic spot has a bit of a lovers’ lane reputation, as well as having several legends associated with it. The most popular one being “when you cross the bridge for the first time you should make a wish, and if you can hold your breath until you reach the other side your wish will come true.”   

Just off the lane was the Gunpowder Cellar built into the side of a hill, it’s a rustic tavern set in a cavernous old 18th century munitions warehouse with an arched brick ceiling. It’s a popular beer hall and is known for its tasty Gunpowder Red beer, while also hosting frequent band appearances.

Later in the week after having lunch at the Café Werner a second time, we turned right and wandered down Ülikooli tn towards the neoclassic columned façade of the University of Tartu’s main building. It is Estonia’s oldest and largest university and the pride and joy of Tartu. The school was originally founded 1583 as a Jesuit institution during Poland’s brief rule of the country, but most of the credit is given to the Swedish King Gustave II Adolph when he upgraded the school to a university in 1632. It was forced to close several times over the centuries due to regional wars, but was later reopened by Russian Czar Alexander I in 1802 and was again reopened by the Soviet Union after World War II, where it became an important contact spot for Soviet academics to meet their western counterparts during the Cold War era.

Farther along some of the buildings near Tartu’s St. John’s Church had unique details. Archeological evidence suggests the church dates back to the late 1100s, and could be the first “Christian church building in Estonia before the 13th-century conquest and great Christianization of the country.”  The basic form of the current church dates from the beginning of the 13th century. Due to the region’s conflicts, the church has been reconstructed several times over the centuries. Unfortunately, the church was closed when we visited the area.

At the end of Ülikooli tn a short walk to the right led us to the Botanical Garden of the University of Tartu. Though in early October it was evident that Estonia has a short growing season and most of the plants were past their prime, but we still enjoyed exploring the various oases of greenery with a number of other couples and families, and imagined how beautiful the gardens must look in the Spring and Summer.

We followed Ruutli tanav, one of Tartu’s oldest streets, back towards the historic center of the town. During the Middle Ages when the winter snows melted during the spring thaw  – “mud season” or Estonia’s “fifth season” – traveling about the countryside was quite difficult. In the larger towns like Tartu the thoroughfares were lined with logs laid perpendicularly across the road to ease the life of the townsfolk and facilitate merchant trade with the Hanseatic League through the town’s riverside port on the Emajõgi. Evidence of these ancient timbered roads is still occasionally discovered whenever there is any infrastructure improvement required in the city. Cobblestones weren’t used for the lanes through town until the 15th century.

We made a short detour off our route to the Virgin Mary’s Dormition Cathedral, an Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church. The beautiful Russian baroque style church was built in 1840 atop the foundations of an earlier wooden church that was burnt down during the 1775 Great Fire of Tartu, a devastating inferno which destroyed almost all the old wooden medieval era buildings in the central part of Tartu.

As we reached the central plaza it was evident that the weekend’s festivities were Tartu’s last big event for the summer high season. The weather was now noticeably colder with morning temperatures of 36F (2C) warming only to 54F (12C), and the outdoor café tables and chairs that lined the square were being taken down and sent into storage, until needed again next Spring. But the season is not over until the buskers stop playing and the trio of musicians from the other day were still entertaining folks around the Kissing Students fountain in the warm afternoon sun.

On our walks through the town, we came across some interesting and creative street murals. All were in well-chosen places that enhanced the wall, none were of the loud bubblegum type, though some were of a political nature. After all, our hotel was named for the Pallas Art School, which existed from 1919 to 1944 in Tartu, and was influential in establishing the aesthetic values of the newly independent country, but was closed during the communist occupation of the country.

Today the school’s artistic legacy continues at the  Pallas University of Applied Sciences which opened in 2000, and features ongoing exhibits in the Pallas Gallery.

The Gray House, now the KGB Cells museum, was uphill from the gallery, just three doors down from a busy intersection, on a street that leads to university housing. It was a non-descript door with buzzers for the three-story apartment building above it, and one for the museum. In the 1940s and 1950s the upper floors served as offices for the Soviet’s secret police. We buzzed and a voice released the door lock for us to enter the lobby, where an arrow pointed to a heavy metal door to the basement, and a set of intimidating stairs that descended to a flickering fluorescent lit hallway. It’s a small space with a dozen prison cells and several interrogation rooms in which the brutality of the Soviet years is documented. Notoriously, on July 8th & 9th, 1941, 173 men and 20 women were summarily executed and buried in the building’s courtyard. Mass deportations of 45,000 Estonians to the Soviet gulags in Siberia continued until 1953. For many it was a death sentence, and few ever returned to their homeland. Across the country the KGB is believed to have murdered nearly 60,000 political prisoners between 1940 -1991. It’s a reminder of the danger of authoritative regimes and sadly is still relevant today.

We discovered another street mural just around the corner from our hotel as we headed to dinner at Restoran Spargel. Over an enjoyable evening, we discussed plans to take advantage of the nice weather predicted for the next day by exploring the small fishing villages along the shoreline of Lake Peipus.

We thoroughly appreciated Tartu’s mix of history and youthful enthusiasm for the future. It’s a city but felt like a small town that we could see ourselves quite comfortably living in and enjoy experiencing all of its cultural events throughout the year.

Till next time,

Craig & Donna

Driving Through the Baltics: Part 9 – Sigulda, Latvia to Tartu, Estonia or Spires, Onion Domes and a Neat Cafe

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Mornings with overcast skies, which cleared by noon, had prevailed for the past two days. We hoped that this weather pattern would continue as we headed north from Sigulda to Tartu under a gunmetal gray sky. It would be less than a three-hour drive if we drove directly there, but that’s not our modus operandi. Over wine the night before we had scoured the map along our tentative route and highlighted some picturesque and fascinating stops for further exploration in the region.

After a short 20-minute drive from Sigulda we stopped at Lielstraupe Castle. It was originally constructed in the later part of the 13th century as a crusader fortress by Voldemar von Rosen, a Teutonic knight and vassal to the Archbishop of Riga, who had initiated a crusade into the region to forcibly convert the area’s pagan tribes to Christianity. The thriving medieval village of Straupe grew around the castle and was a merchant town within the Hanseatic League. It was totally destroyed during the Polish – Swedish wars in the early 1600s and never rebuilt. The castle, now a substantial manor home after being rebuilt from ruins after the wars of the 17th century, remained sporadically in the possession of the von Rosen family, through centuries of the region’s conflicts, until 1939. During the Soviet era the manor was used as the Lielstraupe Tractor Station, with its rooms and stables being used for classrooms, workshops, and dormitories. In the 1960s the estate was used as a psychiatric hospital. Since 2023 the castle has been owned by the Municipality of Cēsis, which has opened it to tourists as it undergoes renovations. Unfortunately, we were unable to tour the interior of the manor, since we stopped by before its opening time.

Our “drive a little then café” instincts took us to Valmiera, the largest town in the Vidzeme region with a population of about 51,000. Like Cēsis and Sigulda, its founding is tied to the Northern Crusade in the 13th century. Parking was conveniently located across from Valmiera’s St. Simon Church. Amazingly, the medieval building, which dates to 1283, is believed to have survived the centuries without any major alterations. Russian Czar Ivan the Terrible ruled during the Livonian War (1558-1583), a conflict which included the medieval superpowers Sweden, Denmark, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth fighting for control of Latvia. Several cannon balls fired by Russian troops into the church’s walls are on display in the church’s narthex as testimony to the strength of its construction. It was a Catholic church until Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation was brought to Latvia with the signing of the Truce of Altmark in 1629, which ended the Polish-Swedish War (1600-1629).

A short walk from the church were the 13th century ruins of a Livonian Order Castle. As ruins go, these were not very impressive, with only a small L-shaped wall section still standing. However, there was a very interesting 3D relief map of old Valmiera in the courtyard in front of the Museum of Valmiera which showed that the town was ringed with defensive fortifications, which signified the town’s importance within the Hanseatic League, second only to the town of Cēsis in the Vidzeme region. The ramparts stood until they were destroyed in the Russian Empire’s shelling of the city during the Great Northern War in 1702. After the war the castle’s ruins were used as a quarry to rebuild the villagers’ homes destroyed during the conflict. The church was easily located on the map and was a good reference point for understanding how the old town was laid out.

From the castle grounds we then followed a pretty path downhill to the bank of the Gaujas River before succumbing to our call for coffee. We stumbled upon Café Kekss totally by accident. They have several unique small greenhouses, with tables and chairs for 4 people in each enclosure, outside their small cafe. It was a chilly and windy day when we visited, but sitting in one of the glass houses was perfect. The staff was very nice and the barista who took our order delivered everything to our table.

We really enjoyed our experience there, and the greenhouses are a great way to extend the season. Before returning to the car we spent a little bit of time strolling along the Dzirnavu ezeriņa promenade in the park downhill from the café.

It was the last Saturday in September, and unexpectedly we had the road to ourselves, only occasionally seeing another car whiz by. As hoped for, the sun brightened the sky later that morning as we continued our drive through a mostly semi-rural landscape, dotted with farms, towards the Latvia/Estonia border.

Only a short distance away from the border we paused to stretch our legs at Valka-Lugaži’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, our last stop in Latvia. The church’s name first appears in medieval documents of 1477. Prominent nobles were patrons of the church since much of the congregation were the poor serfs who farmed the land of their lords during the feudal era, which unfortunately lasted in Latvia and Estonia well into the late 19th century. Church history notes that the Baron von Wrangell family rebuilt the church many times over four calamitous centuries which saw the region engulfed in wars. The last descendant offered to repair the church in 1910 when a fire collapsed the belltower into the church. With the Lord’s good graces and the steady hand of a bomb disposal expert, an unexploded WW2 bomb, ignored by the communist regime for fifty years, was finally removed from the belltower after Latvia regained its independence in 1991. We crossed over the waters of the Pedeli River into Valga, Estonia. Interestingly Valka and Valga were one town until their separation at the end of World War I. With the collapse of Imperial Russia, Estonia and Latvia declared their independence and a new border was determined which split the town in half down the center of the river. A spirit of unity still remains between the two towns, as extended families now travel freely across the border since the countries joined the Schengen Area, and even share a professional basketball team, the BC Valga-Valka/Maks & Moorits, along with the slogan “One Town, Two Countries.”

A few minutes outside of Valga we turned and followed a secondary road to Sangaste Castle in rural Otepää Parish. More manor home than castle, the estate’s history began in 1866 when F. G. M. von Berg (1845–1938), the last Lord of Sangaste, inherited the property from his uncle Count von Berg, a decorated Russian Field Marshal, and dreaming big decided to build his family a 99-room English style mansion. Its size was only curtailed by an imperial rule that permitted no homes with over 100 rooms unless they were built for the Czar. Von Berg was a successful agriculturalist, having developed a new rye variety, along with establishing a prized dairy herd with milk “so good that it was sold in the markets of St Petersburg.”  Though located deep in the rural countryside, the manor had all the modern conveniences available at the beginning of the 20th century, with a telephone line installed in 1896 and electric lights in 1907.

With Estonia’s independence from Russia at the end of the First World War the new government started to seize the lands and manor houses of Baltic Germans. The government however acknowledged von Berg’s contributions to Estonian agriculture and allowed the aging Baron to stay in his home until his death in 1938. During the communist occupation of Estonia, the castle was used as a Young Pioneer Camp and its interior was altered to have 146 rooms. Somewhere along the line someone determined that the manor was composed of 1.45 million red bricks, or one brick for every Estonian.

In the crossroads village of Sangaste, in front of its church, a lone tree showed off its spectacular yellow leaves, signaling Autumn was finally here.

Four miles beyond Sangaste we glimpsed the onion shaped domes of (EAÕK) Ilmjärve Jumalailmumise, an Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church, amidst a clearing. The red brick and stone facade of the 1873 church was brilliant in the afternoon sun. Unfortunately, the church was closed, though we were able to peek at the interior through an old-fashioned skeleton lock, and even take a picture. A placard in front of the building noted that the church’s two large bells were donated by the Russian Czar Alexander II. The church suffered during WW2, but its spirit was wounded the most when thieves in 1979 stole the church’s silver treasures used for communion.

We hadn’t expected restaurants in the area to be so scarce and far apart. Many were already closed for the season, though the weather, now cooler in late September, was still very comfortable. Our hope rose when we approached a restaurant across from the ski lift, that was now carrying mountain bike riders to the summit for a thrilling downhill ride, at the Munamägi Ski Center, outside of Otepää, the “winter capital of Estonia.”

But as we neared an employee flipped the sign hanging in the door to CLOSED! It was only mid-afternoon, had we missed the lunch hours? With our stomachs now rumbling we breezed quickly through the town and regretfully bypassed the opportunity to visit the ruins of Otepää’s ancient hill fort from the Viking era, and the remains of a Bishop’s castle where the oldest known firearm in Europe was discovered. We also missed Otepää kirik, the town’s historic church, which in modern times is historically connected to the country’s flag, when in 1884 the blue, black and white flag of the Estonian Student Union was consecrated there during “Estonia’s Awakening.” The Student Union’s design became the flag of Estonia in 1991.

We eventually had a very nice late lunch at Pangodi kalarestoran, a fish restaurant, before  our last excursion to Luke Mõis, an ancient feudal estate that dates from the 13th century. The manor house is an unassuming building that now hosts events and weddings. But the real interests here were the cascading ponds and the Gardener’s Cottage. The estate’s head horticulturalist must have been highly regarded judging by the beauty of his ornately trimmed petite home, in a lovely bucolic setting along one of the ponds. If we had planned better this would have been the perfect spot for an afternoon picnic. It’s a very pretty spot that’s worth detouring to if you are driving from Riga to Tartu.

Tartu was only 30 minutes from Luke Mõis and we arrived to find Estonia’s 2024 Capital of Culture alive with activity as we checked into the Art Hotel Pallas, a creatively decorated boutique hotel, ideally located on a pedestrian mall that led into the town’s historic center.

After dinner we enjoyed a leisurely stroll over the Kaarsild, an arched bridge that spans the Emajõgi River, an important trade route since the Viking era that connects Lake Võrtsjärv to Lake Peipus and is still navigable all the way to the Baltic Sea. We wondered if a Viking ever imagined the bright lights of the bridge and Tartu’s growing skyline reflecting upon the river’s water.  

Till next time,

Craig & Donna

A Latvian Road Trip: Part 8 – Aristocrats, Soviet Propaganda & the Mountains of Vidzeme or on the Road to Sigulda

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Šiauliai, the Hill of Crosses, and the rustic wooden Chapel of Jakiškiai were our only stops in Lithuania. All three were incredibly interesting, and an art filled Šiauliai was a fantastic discovery that we hadn’t expected but thoroughly enjoyed wandering through. The city of Vilnius, Latvia’s capital, required a time-consuming loop to the east that we chose to forgo, but hope to have a chance of visiting in the future.

It was a beautiful fall day as we recrossed the border into Latvia. Our route took us through the Zemgale Plain, Latvia’s agricultural heartland, an area flat to the horizon as far as our eyes could see. The country’s most fertile region, it’s often called the breadbasket of Latvia. Farmers ploughing their fields revealed dark rich soil ready for the planting of winter wheat.

We don’t do a lot of research before a trip, just enough to determine that we will probably enjoy where we are headed. We find spots along our intended route, to break up the drive, by examining Google maps the evening before the next morning’s departure. That’s how we discovered the Rundāle Palace, an exquisitely restored 18th-century baroque manor with ornamental gardens and museum highlighting the history of the Dukes of Courland, and their thoroughbred stud farms that were renown throughout the Baltics and Russia for the horses they supplied for the equestrian pursuits of various royal courts.

The interior of the palace was splendidly restored with period furniture and elaborate stucco decorations in every room. It was one of the nicest estate type homes we have visited in Europe, and was well worth the price of admission, something we can’t say for some of the other “palaces” we’ve toured.

Being gardeners, we enjoyed the extensive formal landscape plantings that have been described as the “Versailles of Latvia.”

Ten minutes down the road, Bauska Castle stood strategically on a small hill above the confluence of the Mūša and Mēmele rivers where they merge to form Lielupe River, a vital trade route in ancient times through southern Latvia. It was the highest point of land we had encountered in several days. Originally it was a hill fortress built with timber by the Semigallians, a pagan tribe noted for their strong resistance to the Livonian Order of Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, before their subjugation in the last years of the of the 13th-century. In the early 1400s the knights constructed the first stone castle on the hill. It became one of the main residences of the Dukes of Courland, before the Rundāle Palace was built, when the castle was given to the Dukes after the Livonian Order collapsed in 1562.

A long path through dense woods led to a vast field dominated by five towering brutalist, as in the Soviet style, depictions of prisoners. The field was once Salaspils Camp (1941-1944) built by the Nazis as a “detention center,” for political prisoners and a “labor correction camp,” for Latvians who resisted the forced labor demanded of them by the occupying German army during World War 2. It was later used as a “transit and collection camp” for Jews before they were sent to concentration camps in Poland and Germany. One thousand Jews were brought from Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Germany, to build the camp, and died from exposure during the brutally cold winter of 1941/1942. Two walls of barbed wire and six towers with machine guns, search lights and sirens that wailed at any sign of escape surrounded the field.

It’s estimated that over the camp’s three years of operation, 23,000 people, half of them ordinary citizens captured during special campaigns against civilians in Belarus, Russia and Latgale, a region of eastern Latvia, were imprisoned behind its barbed wire. Trainloads were sent as forced laborers to Germany, and roughly two-thousand men were forcibly conscripted to fight for the German army.

In the museum a video displays historical footage of the camp when it was liberated by the Russian Red Army, including survivor testimonies as documentation of the brutality the Nazis inflicted upon the people of Latvia. Many in Latvia believe the Soviet Union built the Salaspils Camp Memorial in 1967 during the communist occupation of Latvia as propaganda to divert attention away from their policies of deporting Latvians to Siberia and Ukraine, while depicting themselves as great liberators who also suffered at the hands of the Nazis. The communist regime ignored the fact that the Soviet Union’s 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression treaty with Nazi Germany, contained a secret amendment that allowed the USSR to forcibly annex Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, while Germany invaded Poland, starting World War 2. The irony of our visit to this somber site on a sunny fall day was not lost on us. We can only hope for a better future.

The flat farmlands slowly changed to rolling hills then mountains as we drove into the Gauja National Park, Latvia’s largest nature preserve, which surrounds the small town of Sigulda, and straddles both sides of the picturesque Gauja River valley, as it flows through the Vidzeme region. An area filled with steep ravines and historic medieval castles, which is often referred to as the “Switzerland of Latvia.” It’s an outdoor enthusiast’s paradise with over 560km (350 miles) of hiking trails and 320km (200 miles) of cycling paths, all of which are popular with the cross-country skiers during the winter months.

There might be a little bit of wishful thinking along the lines of “one country’s mountains are another country’s hills,” as the highest point in the Gauja National Park is 160 meters (525ft) tall. Though that’s the equivalent of 52 story building and a significant height if you had to climb the stairs to the top, especially if you are from the lowlands around Riga. During the winter months the region is a snowy wonderland with several ski resorts and a bobsleigh, luge & skeleton track that twists down a Sigulda mountainside for 1.2 km and has 16 curves. It’s a challenging course successfully used by the Latvian National Team to train ten Winter Olympics medalists since Latvia’s independence in 1999. One team won a gold medal in the four-man bobsled event at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, in Russia.

The Emperor’s Chair was not far from the sports complex and offered a nice view of the Gauja River flowing through its valley, which was just beginning to show the first signs of autumn color in late September. Sigulda is a quaint town without a center as the buildings along its treelined streets are very far apart. Now late in the afternoon, we checked into the Hotel Sigulda, a beautiful older ivy-covered building. The front houses the restaurant, with rooms above which hide a modern wing that faces the parking area. The hotel would be our home for the next two nights while we explored the surrounding area.

The next morning was very overcast as we entered the grounds of Sigulda’s New Castle and Old Castle. Partially restored stone ruins are all that remain of an older fortress that was built in the 13th century by Order of the Sword Brothers over the spot where an 11th century log fortress built by the Livonians of Gauja advantageously overlooked the river and Turaida Castle across the valley to the north.

By the late 1700s the von der Borch family had acquired the ruined castle and its surrounding lands. A century later a von der Borch daughter, Olga, married Prince Dmitry Kropotkin of Russia and the estate was passed to him as part of her dowry.

Construction of the Sigulda New Palace, a neo-gothic style manor house, began in 1878 with masons reusing stones taken from the older ruins; the best local woodworkers were hired to craft the fine interior. Princess Kropotkin was instrumental in getting the new railway line from Riga to Pskov, which then branched to St Petersburg and Moscow, to run through the town, and promoted Sigulda area as a burgeoning resort area. Her son Prince Nikolai Kropotkin followed her civic mindedness and built the first bobsleigh and luge track in Latvia and the Baltics.

The interior of the manor style castle is full of highly polished wood and stained-glass windows. But we thought the best part was being able to climb the circular stairs of the building’s tower to the catwalk at the top.

Even on a rainy day it offered a spectacular panoramic view of the old castle and the refurbished outbuildings of the estate that now host workshops and craftspeople selling their wares.

It was from this lookout that we spotted the aerial tram that crosses the river valley from Sigulda to the Turaida Museum Reserve.

We drove there instead as we thought it was too windy for us to take the aerial lift, after a pleasant lunch at Kaķu Māja, the Cat House, which also operates as a bed & breakfast inn. It is a very pretty restaurant that has a nice vibe. The food is served cafeteria style and was surprisingly very delicious, while also being extremely budget friendly.

The Turaida reserve is a large 42 hectares (104 acres) park with a partially restored medieval castle, period buildings and Dainu Kalns, which translates as “I sing the mountain,” but is commonly referred to as Folk Song Park, a tremendous rolling field with over 25 large stone sculptures inspired from Latvian folktales by the artist Indulis Ranka.

Dainu Kalns was constructed in 1985 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Krišjānis Barons, a Latvian folklorist who collected and transcribed over 30,000 of the country’s folk songs that had been passed down through the generations, and is recognized as being an important contributor to Latvia’s National Awakening in the mid-19th century. Folk Song Park also hosts various folk festivals throughout the summer months.

You have to admire the gumption of the city of Cēsis, a forty minute drive through a beautiful landscape from Sigulda, for declaring themselves the Latvian Capital of Culture 2025, the first in the country, after losing the title of European Capital of Culture 2027 to the Baltic port city of Liepāja . This was on top of an earlier disappointment in 2014, when  Riga won the honor. Not wanting to see all their efforts of planning fall by the wayside, city officials designed a year-long celebration with numerous historical and art exhibitions, dance performances, theatre, and concerts with the motto – “Culture in minds, castles, and yards.”

Cēsis is considerably larger than Sigulda and has a well-established old town with Rīgas iela, a pedestrian mall running for several blocks through its core. We arrived to the Cēsis Castle late in the afternoon, as the sun was painting the rough castle walls in its golden glow.  It shares a similar history with the castles of Sigulda. Construction of this castle started in 1209 and in 1279 Teutonic knights rode from the castle into battle carrying a red-white-red banner, first noted in the 13th-century Livonian Rhymed Chronicle.

Legend believes this banner was made from the bed of a knight fatally wounded in an earlier battle. The colors became the Latvian flag. By the mid-1400s the castle was the permanent base of the Livonian Order of Teutonic Knights, and the growing town’s location near the Gauja River made it a key trading hub, which led to its membership in the Hanseatic League in the early 1500s.

Crossing a creaky drawbridge over a dry moat, we entered the courtyard of the castle and were greeted by a Latvian maiden, a costumed reenactor, who offered us two glass lanterns holding lighted candles to illuminate our way through the dark passages of the fortress.  I was about to decline, but Donna convinced me otherwise with “come on, this will be fun,” and it was! We carried them up and down the narrow tower stairs and through various cavernous halls with only the ambient light from small windows providing a little bit of illumination.

The third floor of the tower hall hosted the immersive Multimedia Story of Cēsis Castle, that used surround sound and digital technologies to project an engaging animated film onto the castle’s  walls.It was very well produced and contributed greatly to our understanding of the history of the area and life in a medieval castle. It was really surprising how such a simple prop as a lantern could enhance our experience so much. We had a great time, and it was well worth the modest admission price.

On the way out of town we stopped in the park below the castle to photograph Cēsis’ pretty Byzantine style Enlightenment of Christ Orthodox Church, which dates from the mid-1800s.

On our way into Cēsis earlier an old cemetery caught our attention. We had time to stop and wander through it now as we drove out of the city. The cemetery was interesting but very neglected with overgrown bushes and roots covering toppled headstones. It’s named Vācu kapi, though it’s also referred to as the German Cemetery, as it contains 371 graves bearing the Iron Cross, identifying German soldiers killed in Latvia during WW2.

But there are also the graves of Ottoman Empire soldiers who died in Cesis as prisoners of war during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. The Turks weren’t really incarcerated – “First they lived in Cēsis under supervision, but afterwards, as they were so far away from their motherland, their regime became freer – they could traverse the city, go to the pub, the sauna. After a while some went back to their homes, while others struck root in Cēsis.” But it’s also believed the cemetery contains the graves of Latvian Germans, Russian atheist, and some Jewish citizens of Cēsis. Most of the vandalism to the cemetery is thought to have occurred during the communist occupation of Latvia. It’s an interesting side note to the history of a complex part of the world.

In hindsight, staying in the larger town of Cēsis might have been a better choice, as it has a compact historic center with cobbled streets and shops that would have been interesting to explore had we stayed there.

Till next time,

Craig & Donna

Road Tripping Through the Baltics: Part 7 – Riga to Šiauliai, Lithuania or Crosses, Churches and Towns Filled with Art

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There are always several dilemmas with a road trip: how far to drive, do we drive straight through or look for interesting stops along our route? We tend to make stops, multiple stops to the point of my trusted co-pilot advising that, “we’ll never make it there at this rate,” but there’s a fear of possibly missing something. Fortunately, our “walk a little, then café,” philosophy easily converts to “drive a little, then café,” and in pursuit of those cups of coffee we’ve happened upon some laid back, interesting places.

The Hill of Crosses in northern Lithuania was our destination as we headed south on the A8/12 from Riga. Only two hours (78 miles/126 km) from Riga, many folks choose to do it as a day trip out of the Latvian capital. Which would have worked for us, but we have this quirky rule that we don’t put a pin in our wall map unless we’ve actually stayed overnight in the country. So, with that in mind, we booked two nights’ accommodation in Šiauliai, the town just beyond the Hill of Crosses.

Craving a cappuccino, we detoured into Jelgava for what we thought would be a short stop to satisfy our caffeine addiction. As we crossed over the Lielupe River we spotted the Jelgava Palace on a large island. It called for a stop. A wooden fortress was first erected here in the 13th century as part of the Livonian Order’s conquest of the pagan Zemgalian tribe that inhabited the region. Today’s beautiful 18th century Baroque style palace with 669 rooms is touted as being the largest in the Baltic states. It is actually a reconstruction of the palace which was burned down during WW2. During its apex it was the seat of the Duchy of Courland and Zemgale, and an important diplomatic post between Russia and Poland. Famously, the exiled French King Louis XVIII, to save his head from the guillotine, inhabited the palace from 1798 – 1807. Part of the palace houses a small museum with the Family Vault of the Dukes of Courland and Semigalla being the main attraction. The rest of the building is occupied by the Latvia University of Agriculture and Latvia’s University of Life Sciences and Technologies.

Across from the palace was Pasta Sala, a smaller island with an interesting art park that hosts the annual Jelgava International Sand Sculpture Festival every June and an International Ice Sculpture Festival every February. Unfortunately, traveling in the late September shoulder season we missed it. But we did enjoy wandering along a walking path through an installation of Chamotte fired-clay sculptures.

Between the palace and the park, we were now smitten with the impromptu stop and were enticed to follow a graceful modern footbridge, the Mītavas Gājēju, that tilts over the river into the town center, which was surprisingly quiet for a Tuesday in late September, considering that the university town is Latvia’s fourth largest city, with a population of roughly 60,000.

It’s unusual for only half a church to be left standing, but Jelgava’s Holy Trinity Church (1574) is a stark reminder of the devastation the city suffered during Soviet Union and Nazi Germany sieges and occupations of the city during WW2, which left ninety percent of Jelgava in ruins and all its Jewish citizens lost to the Holocaust. Its belltower above the town’s tourist information office was opened in 2010 as an observation deck after extensive reconstruction.

That promise of a morning coffee wasn’t forgotten as we walked along a pedestrian mall past a small daily street market to Konditoreja Silva, a bistro and patisserie where the coffees were very good and the selection of tasty pastries was mouthwatering.

Back on the road, we continued our drive south and crossed the border into Lithuania. We zoomed by a small roadside marker that pointed to the Jakiškiai Chapel, one of the last wooden churches from the 17th century remaining in Lithuania. We u-turned in order to find it. Passing through a small hamlet, we located the church situated on a low knoll, surrounded by fields and pasturelands.

It’s also known as the St Ignatius of Loyola Cemetery Chapel, named for the founder of the Jesuits, who were active in the region at the time. It’s a fine example of rustic folk sacral architecture.

The graveyard surrounding the chapel was full of interesting old headstones. Some were carved from logs and were well weathered and split from age and the elements, while the more recent graves were marked with stone or marble memorials with the deceased’s portrait etched into the surface. There was a caretaker working on the grounds who wouldn’t acknowledge our presence, so we contented ourselves with peering through the dusty windows into the sanctuary the best we could.

The Hill of Crosses was only 20 minutes farther south, just off the A12. The precise history of the hill is not known, but it is believed to have started as a way to commemorate Lithuanian rebels who never returned after uprisings against Imperial Russia’s rule in 1831 and 1836.  From a distance the hill is only speck on the horizon. It wasn’t until we were walking the long approach path that the hill slowly grew, and its monumental scale became apparent.

Not really in height, it’s a modest hill with stairs to its apex, but in girth and the sheer number of crosses, from tiny store-bought ones to large crosses handcrafted I imagine with sweat and tears. It’s estimated that there are now 200,000 crosses and crucifixes spread across the half hectare (1 acre) site. All are mingled together haphazardly and are treated equally in their importance, and they stand as testimony to the character and faith of the Lithuanian people who created this spectacular monument. The crosses were bulldozed and razed repeatedly during the Soviet era but were always rebuilt by the people. The hill stands as a sign of quiet resistance to the Soviet Union’s atheist communist occupation.

The fifty years of oppression which started with the Soviet Union’s annexation of Lithuania in 1940 ended in 1990 with the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania. A dream realized after the Baltic Way, a human chain of approximately two million peaceful protesters joining hands along a route that stretched from Vilnius, Lithuania through Riga, Latvia to Tallinn, Estonia in August 1989. Lithuanian was the first of fifteen Soviet republics to declare independence, which forced the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Since Pope John Paul II’s visit to the Hill of Crosses in 1993 it has become a popular pilgrimage site.

During the 13th-century Christianity was not enthusiastically embraced by the pagan Lithuanian tribes of the region who rallied to decisively defeat the onslaught of the crusader Knights of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword in the1236 Battle of the Sun/Saulė, the victory from which Šiauliai takes its name and the year of its founding. It would be another two centuries before the first wooden church in the town was built on a small rise overlooking Lake Talkša.

The graceful Church of Saints Peter and Paul with its soaring belltower and brilliant white façade replaced the earlier 1445 church in 1617. It was our first stop. The church became Šiauliai Cathedral when Pope John Paul II elevated its status when the Diocese of Siauliai was created in 1997.

After checking into the hotel Turnė (free parking) for two nights, we walked a short distance into the center of Šiauliai to stroll along its nearly mile long pedestrian mall, Vilniaus g. One of the first things we noticed about the town was the amount of public art displayed along this street.

It’s an interesting variety of wall murals, and contemporary sculptures that enhance the walkway. As it was getting late we only walked the southern end of the mall to have dinner at Žemaitis Restoranas, located in the Hotel Šiauliai. The Lithuanian specialties – cepelini, homemade dumplings, Kedainiai potato pancakes, Karka with stewed cabbage – were so good and reasonably priced that we dined there twice.  

By the time we had finished dinner it was dark outside and upon leaving the restaurant we spotted the spectacularly lit dancing water fountain “Trys paukščiai,” Three Birds, designed by the Lithuanian artist Kestutis Kasparavicius. Its ballet of synchronized water jets and colored lights totally mesmerized us as we watched its performance several times. The quality of the installation was amazing and equal to the best fountains you’d find in NYC, Paris or Madrid.

The next morning, in pursuit of breakfast, we walked the northern part of Vilniaus Street, which we discovered was the first pedestrianized boulevard in Lithuania when it prohibited cars in 1975, and is the third oldest pedestrian street in Europe. A nice feather in the town’s cap for an off-the-radar-destination.

As we worked our way towards the Prezo Kepyklėlė café, the street was full of university students walking to morning classes in the buildings of Vilnius University and Šiauliai State University of Applied Sciences scattered across town.

Much of the contemporary public art at this end of the mall is sponsored by the Šiauliai Art Gallery with a mission statement to encourage within the community the free expression of art.

A narrow alley next to the gallery led to an almost hidden away St. Ignatius Loyola Church. It’s not very old as churches go, but its uniqueness stems from its roots as an ordinary home before the Jesuits bought it in 1930 and converted it to a church. At the end of WW2 communist authorities imprisoned two of its priests and sent a third to exile in Siberia. The sanctuary was closed and used as a warehouse, then a gym. In 1986 the local government deceptively requested funds from Soviet authorities to renovate the building into a concert hall but instead restored the church. After Lithuania declared its independence in March of 1990 the church was reconsecrated in December, just in time to celebrate Christmas Mass. A statue of Pope John Paul II in the church’s courtyard commemorates his stay in the small rectory when he visited the Hill of Crosses in 1993.

In the parking lot of an apartment building next to the church we noticed a defiant wall mural depicting a young woman in traditional dress lighting a Molotov cocktail held by a partisan resistance fighter. It testifies to the resilient character of Lithuanians. Lithuania did not submit easily to communist rule after WW2 and had an organized resistance movement into the early 1950s, with some individual partisans fighting on in the 1960s. Unfortunately, a car was parked too close to the wall for me to get a clear photo of the mural.

We found Šiauliai to be wonderfully walkable as we made our way across town to Lake Talkša, first stopping at Saulės Laikrodžio Aikštė, Sundial Square, where a brilliant golden archer stands atop an 18m (59ft) tall gnomon which casts its shadow across the numbers 1-2-3-6, the year of the town’s founding, in the plaza at its base.

Two paths from the sundial led to the lake. One was a direct shorter route, but we chose the longer way through the neighboring cemetery to the lakeshore. It was a perfect fall afternoon with puffy white clouds sailing across the bluest sky. On the far shore only a subtle hint of yellow suggested autumn colors would soon appear.

A path along the shore led to a children’s playground and outdoor fitness area before reaching a large stone labyrinth where a lone woman seemed to be deep in a meditative walk.

Beyond the labyrinth stood a large metal sculpture called Geležinė Lapė, the Iron Fox. In 2009 the local artist Vilius Puronas crafted 7 tons of steel into this whimsical monument that’s 15m (49ft) long and 6.6m (22ft) tall to celebrate the 1000th anniversary of the earliest mention of Lithuania as a country. In a 1009 chronicle called Annals of Quedlinburg, a writer described in Latin, “in confinio Rusciæ et Lituæ a paganis capite plexus,” which translates as, on the border of Rus’ and Lithuania, the pagans have their heads covered with plexuses. It’s not the most notable introduction to the world at large, but I will say during our short time in Lithuanian the country made a great first impression upon us! One day we hope to return and make it to Vilnius.

Till next time,

Craig & Donna

Road Tripping Through the Baltics: Part 6 – Riga, Latvia, or Where Old World Charm Meets Art Nouveau

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We didn’t know what to expect when we first drove into Riga after following the E67 south from Pärnu, Estonia. It was a beautiful drive through evergreen forests that paralleled the Baltic Sea. But as we neared Latvia’s capital and largest city, with a population nearing 600,000, scattered nondescript low-rise apartment buildings sprouted from the landscape. The density of the housing and buildings grew along our route, which was now a six-lane tree-lined boulevard with a tramline. Closer to the city center the road narrowed at Brīvības iela (Freedom Street), and its older character began to shine through with many 19th and early 20th century buildings embracing Neoclassical elements.

Painted bright yellow, the Russian Orthodox St. Alexander Nevsky Church was eye-catching. The Palladian style building with columned facade and domed sanctuary looked solidly constructed of stone, but it is actually a wooden structure erected in the 1820s. An unusual feature was its freestanding belltower that was added in 1863. A building farther down the block was our first introduction to Riga’s early 1900s Art Nouveau architecture.

Continuing into the city center on Brīvības iela we parked along a side street next to the Esplanade Park and walked back through its well-manicured grounds, past statues and a delightfully whimsical birdhouse tree to Riga’s Nativity of Christ Orthodox Cathedral. It’s a beautiful stately building capped with a golden dome. Constructed in a Neo-Byzantine style during the late 19th-century, while Latvia was still part of the Russian Empire ruled by Russian Tsar Alexander II, it is the largest Orthodox church in the Baltic countries. When Riga was under the Soviet Union’s communist control the cathedral was used as a planetarium.

A short distance from the cathedral was the Latvian capital’s Freedom Monument. It’s a 42m (138 ft) tall obelisk that commemorates the soldiers killed during its War of Independence, which raged for two years between 1918-1920, when Latvia declared its sovereignty from a collapsing Russian Empire, but then had to fight off the newly formed communist Red Army of the Soviet Union, which didn’t want Latvia to secede. It was symbolically erected in the same spot that a statue of Russian Czar Peter the Great once stood. Latvia’s hard-fought liberty lasted only twenty years before the Soviet Union’s re- invasion and annexation in 1940. During the Soviet era, communist authorities considered demolishing the female figure of Liberty lifting three gilded stars, that represent the three original cultural regions of Latvia: Kurzeme, Vidzeme and Latgale, but dismissed the idea because they feared it would have pushed the citizenry of Riga to fill the streets in protest.

We secured overnight parking at Autostāvvieta and dragged ourbags noisily behind us, down cobbled lanes for several blocks to the Hotel Monte Kristo, which was located on the edge of the historic district, and had very budget friendly room rates.

We found the pedestrian-only Old Town the next morning a delight to wander through as we worked our way to Livu Square, which many consider the heart of the Riga’s Historic District with its numerous restaurants and umbrellaed cafes surrounding a picturesque square. Feeder streets were speckled with the facades of many Hanseatic League merchant houses from 13th to the 15th centuries that survived the destruction of the Second World War. It felt as if we were in a small village instead of metropolitan Riga.

Just off the square is one of Riga’s famous landmarks, the Cat House. It was built in 1909 and combines Art Nouveau decorations with medieval turrets and two angry cats. Local folklore tells of a wealthy merchant who, when snubbed by members of Riga’s Great Guild and denied inclusion, in response commissioned two cat sculptures. The felines were sculpted with arched backs and raised tails, and positioned on the top of the turrets with their butts insultingly facing the guild. When the merchant eventually received membership into the guild, the offending sculptures remained but were turned to show the guild their better side.

While some folks can persuasively argue that the larger more cosmopolitan Dome Square with the Cathedral of Riga, and its cloister, plus magnificent Baroque pipe organ – one of the largest in the world – and ornately carved 17th-century pulpit, anchoring the plaza, is ground zero for activities in Riga.

Dating from the early 1200s, the cathedral has undergone many alterations over the centuries that include a mishmash of Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque architectural styles that miraculously blend together beautifully. During the communist era the church was closed as a place of worship and used as a concert hall. It reopened for religious services in 1991, after Latvia regained its independence.

The plaza hosts a variety of events throughout the year, including an annual Christmas market, a Midsummer Fair in celebration of the Summer Solstice on June 23rd and 24th every year, and the Miķeļdiena Fair, a harvest festival held at the end of September. There is also a constant rotation of art installations on the plaza. When we visited an inviting open sided room called the Dome Next Door intrigued passersbys to investigate it further.

Then there is Rīgas Rātslaukums, the city’s spacious old 13th-century town hall/market square containing the House of the Black Heads, an extraordinary Gothic-style building originally built in 1334 by the Brotherhood of the Black Heads, a guild for unmarried merchants, shipowners and foreigners, that was for many decades the largest public building in the city. The Brotherhood takes its name from its patron saint, Saint Maurice, a Christian martyr traditionally depicted as a black man. Sadly, the iconic structure was destroyed in 1941 by Nazi bombing during World War II.

Only the building’s original foundation remained and the guild hall’s reconstruction, based on old drawings and early 20th-century photographs was, unfortunately not started until 1996, but then joyfully completed in time to be part of Riga’s 800th year anniversary celebration in 2001.

The plaza in front of the guild hall has excellent acoustics and is a popular spot for folks to gather and listen to classical music buskers. It also hosts a large RIGA sculpture in 6ft tall letters that’s a favorite spot for visitors to take Instagram-worthy selfies.

Across the square is the controversial Latvian Red Riflemen statue, a colossal red stone monument erected in 1971 by the Soviets commemorating a Latvian military unit that was formed as part of Russia’s Imperial army during World War I to defend the country from German invasion. It switched its allegiance to the communist cause after the Bolshevik revolution, with some units fighting against Latvia during its War of Independence. Many think that keeping the statue is an affront to Latvia’s history and want it removed, while others say it should stay to acknowledge a complicated past that the country is still coming to terms with.

Others still will point to the observation deck in the towering 123m (404ft) steeple of the 15th-century St. Peter’s Church that offers an unobstructed 360-degree panoramic view of the historic district and the metropolis that has spiderwebbed out from the center of Riga.

From this vantage point it was easy to understand why Albert of Buxhoevden chose this spot in 1199 to land 23 ships of Crusaders, the Brothers of the Sword, determined to convert the pagan tribes of Livonia to Christianity at the beginning of the Northern Crusade.

While the church is attractive, the streets around it are tight and there’s barely enough room to compose a photograph of the whole church. The church lost it spire and roof during the German Army’s shelling of the city in 1941. (But it was the Soviet Union’s scorched earth advance across Latvia in 1944 that left nearly fifty percent of Riga in rubble.) The resulting fire gutted the building, and it was left in ruins until a 20-year long renovation started in 1954. Fortunately, there were funds in the budget for an elevator, which now makes journeying to the viewing gallery quick and painless. The views out over the city were amazing. And from the tower’s vantage point it was easy to see how the Daugava River was so important to Riga’s prosperity as a naturally protected inland port city, in the early 1900s when Riga was the Russian Empire’s third largest city. We saw the city’s new prosperity emerging in a towering modern skyline across the river. Other points of interest around the church include the Chimney Sweep House and the whimsical Town Musicians of Bremen sculpture that’s based on a Brothers Grimm fairy tale.

We enjoyed all four of these destinations as they were each unique in their own way, but we also loved wandering down the smaller lanes between these sights to savor the ambiance of the Old Town.

Riga’s massive Central Market occupies three cavernous former Zeppelin hangars only a 10 minute walk from the old district. There must have been over 100 food stalls selling fruits, vegetables, cheese, honey, meats & tons of smoked fish. A foodie’s heaven, it was one of the best mind-boggling food markets we have ever been to. Embrace the smoked fish, it’s delicous! There was a remarkable selection available with a variety of flavor nuances depending on the type of fish and the wood or pinecones used to provide the smoke cure.

During its prosperous heydays in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the city’s merchants and industrialists reinvested their wealth into a building boom that embraced the highly decorative frontispieces of Art Nouveau architecture.

Many fine examples of these buildings are scattered all across Riga, but there is a concentration of them designed by the architect Mikhail Eisenstein on Alberta, Strēlnieku, and Elizabetes Streets in “the Quiet Center,” a treelined residential neighborhood near the Latvian National Museum of Art, that has contributed to Riga being regarded as the “Baltic Pearl,” and the “Paris of the North.” 

To reach the neighborhood we crossed a footbridge over the Pilsetas canal in Bastejkalna, a sculpture filled park. The canal was once part of the defensive moat that encircled medieval Riga, but it was reworked into a scenic park when most of the town’s ancient ramparts were demolished in the 1860s to facilitate the expansion of a growing city. Small tour boats now offer rides along the tranquil scenic waterway. 

Our walk returning to the historic center passed a variety of buildings and protest murals before reaching the Latvian National Theatre, an eclectically designed cultural arts center where Latvia’s independence was declared from its stage on November 18, 1918.

Strolling along Krišjāņa Valdemāra iela in front of the theatre towards the Daugava River offered a nice view of the modern Vansu Tilts bridge and the skyscrapers of Riga’s new commerce center across the river.

The last remaining section of Riga’s ancient defensive wall stands along Torna iela and we re-entered the old town through its Swedish Gate, that dates to the 1600s.

It was an interesting neighborhood with charming narrow cobbled lanes that led to the Saint Mary Magdalene Church (13th-century), St. Jacob’s Catholic Cathedral which was built in 1225 and passed back and forth between Catholic and Lutheran denominations several times over the centuries, and the petite Blessed Sacrament Chapel, all located within a block of each other.

We had many pleasant meals all across Riga during our three days’ stay, as the local restauranters produce delicious, culinary experiences, for tourists and neighbors alike. Our dinner at Ala Pagrabs, an atmospheric subterranean speakeasy that serves classic Latvian fare, great beer, and offers live music, was outstanding. Riga is a lovely city that we thought we could enjoy living in, though the winters might be too cold for us.

Till next time,

 Craig & Donna

An Estonian Road Trip: Part 5 – Pärnu to Riga or A Hidden Gem and Rocky Beaches

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Decisions, decisions, decisions: where to go, what to see, which hotel to choose, how far to drive? An hour earlier we had driven from the ferry port in Virtsu, after spending three days on Saaremaa Island, and arrived in Pärnu.

A long 4-hour drive to Riga, Latvia, at the end of the day, which would have had us navigating the city after dark, did not appeal to us. Instead, we opted for a one-night stay in Pärnu, a popular summer resort town, with a long, wide, sandy beach. The northern end of the beach has low dunes and the Muuli boardwalk that parallels the Pärnu River and leads to a breakwater that extends far out into the waters of Pärnu Bay and the Gulf of Riga. In the wide middle section of the beach there is the Purskkaev, an illuminated, dancing fountain at the beginning of a long walkway that follows the edge of the sand farther south. While the beach that September afternoon was a little too chilly for us to enjoy, we did find the historic center of Pärnu to be a wonderful, sleepy gem of a destination, with intriguing architecture. A pleasant surprise that fully exceeded our expectations, instead of the boring overnight stay that we had anticipated.

Valli Park with the last section of moat that once encircled a Hanseactic League fortress, and the 17th-century old Tallinn Gate, the only surviving monumental rampart gate in the Baltics, was our first stop. Its ancient drawbridge once connected the citadel to the old Postal Road that ran from Riga to Tallinn. Originally the town was founded on the right bank of Pärnu River in the early 13th-century, during the Northern Crusades, by the bishop of Ösel-Wiek, as a base to Christianize the indigenous pagans of ancient Estonia. After local tribes raided and destroyed much of old Pärnu, the decision was made to establish new Pärnu as a citadel across the river. New Pärnu prospered under the Hanseactic League, the powerful Germanic merchant guild that influenced the growth of many of the port cities along the Baltic Sea. A succession of rulers – the Teutonic Knights, Lithuania, and Poland – have left their marks on the city. But most notable was the Swedish Empire’s construction of the moat and earthen ramparts in the 1670s to defend the city from being engulfed by the Russian Empire’s desire to expand west into the Baltic.

A walk across town to Punane Torn, Red Tower, revealed a cornucopia of wonderful 17th, 18th, and 19th century architectural styles that included painted doors, timbered buildings, stucco facades, orthodox church domes, and protestant steeples.

The tower, once part of the city’s defensive wall, was constructed in the 15th century, during the tenure of the Teutonic Knights, as a prison with a 6-meter-deep prisoner pit. It is the oldest preserved structure in Pärnu and houses a branch of the city’s museum. A block from the tower is the Seegi Maja Almshouse, first built in the13th-century to help Parnu’s destitute and disabled; it was rebuilt in 1658 and is now used as the restaurant for the St. Peterburg Hotel.

Rüütli Tänav, a pedestrian mall with several side alleys, runs for several blocks through the old town and is the center of activity. It boasts an array of coffee houses, shops, and restaurants featuring international menus. Later that evening we had a great dinner at Kolhethi, a Georgian restaurant, which we highly recommend.

On the edge of Old Town, the streets around the Hotel Victoria still hosted interesting architecture and a variety of street murals and graffiti.

The hotel, with its distinctive mansard roof, was built in 1926 and opened as the Grand Hotel with a café in 1931, “where the great soloists from Tallinn performed.” During the Soviet era it was known as the Hotel Voit and it was the only sanctioned hotel in Pärnu that westerners were allowed to stay in when visiting the city. But the café’s music tradition continued with a small orchestra that performed twice a day. The building was renovated after Estonia’s independence in 1991 and reopened as the Hotel Victoria with the Grand Café.

As we were checking in a celloist, an older gentleman, was playing in the lobby. We commented on how splendid his playing was, and the receptionist responded, “he practices in the lobby every time he stays with us, and he’s been coming here for many years.” Unaware of the hotel’s history then, we now wonder, was he old enough to have been an echo of the Soviet era orchestra?

The next morning, we continued to Riga. After entering Latvia, our search for a place to stop for a morning coffee break (there were few opportunities) took us to Saulkrasti, a small seaport along the rugged Baltic, where we found the Ostmala Café, in the lower level of the Saulkrasti Cultural Center. The café is a wonderful little hidden gem and the perfect spot to relax for a while on the way from Pärnu to Riga. It’s nicely decorated with paintings by local artists and seemed to have only two employees – our friendly and helpful waitress/cashier, and the talented chef in the kitchen. The restaurant had a simple menu with some tasty Latvian dishes and was very budget friendly. Afterwards we followed the walkway from the cafe along the harbor for a short way, and watched logging trucks bring their cut trees to the port for export. Afterwards we headed to nearby Saulkrasti beach for a walk along a dramatic stretch of boulders and sand.

Closer to Riga we stopped at Carnikavas Pludmale, a picturesque and inviting wild beach that stretched for miles along the Baltic coast, north and south, as far as our eyes could see. A strong breeze off the water lifted the soft golden sand into the wind and tingled our skin. Latvia’s pristine coastline is the unintended result of Joseph Stalin’s paranoia that the western alliance was going to stage an amphibious landing along the coast. Do defend the USSR against this threat, the communists razed all the homes along the seacoast for 300km (186mi) and heavily guarded it against attack and preventing escape from behind the Iron Curtain.

Riga’s Brīvības Piemineklis, Freedom Monument, greeted us later that day as we arrived in the city.

Till next time, Craig & Donna

An Estonian Road Trip: Part 4 – Three Autumn Days on Saaremaa Island or A Castle, Conflicts, & Churches

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A row of windmills silhouetted against the early autumn twilight lined the road as we sped toward Kuressaare, the largest town on Saaremaa Island. A heavy plumbeous cloud cover was darkening the sky earlier than usual, but we hoped to reach our lodging, Vinoteegi Residents, before nightfall.

From past experiences of driving in Europe, parking our rental car was always an issue, and sometimes very costly. We were pleasantly relieved during our three-week road trip through Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania that we only had to pay for parking once when staying in Riga, Latvia. The rest of the time, convenient and safe parking was available on the street. After settling into the charming boutique hotel, we walked several blocks through a residential area and the historic town center to dinner.

On the town square the lively activity at Söstar köök & baar caught our attention, and we enjoyed several tasty selections from their eclectic menu.

The next morning, we were up early to take advantage of the photographer’s “golden hour,” at Kuressaare Castle, a twenty-minute walk from our hotel. Our stroll down the quiet neighborhood lanes was a nice introduction to the town’s charming diverse architecture.

In the dawn light the bastion fortress, Saaremaa Island’s most iconic landmark, looked particularly beautiful and intriguing. So much so that we found ourselves returning to the citadel several times during our stay to snap photos of it in different light.   

Construction of the fortress’s earthen ramparts started after the Teutonic Order defeated the pagan Saaremaa islanders during the Great Northern Crusade in the early 1200s. A century later the fortress was transferred to the Bishopric of Ösel–Wiek, based on the mainland in Haapsalu, and the building of the three story, stone Bishop’s castle began. Interestingly, the first written record of the castle appears in 1380 concerning the murder of Bishop Heinrich III Biscop. Elected by church officials in 1374, Heinrich III turned out to be very corrupt and was, among other abuses, accused of selling church land and assets to support his mistress’s lavish lifestyle. Ignoring the charges, he left Haapsalu and fled to Kuressaare Fortress’s newly finished Bishop’s castle, with only the loyal members of his staff. A while later the bishop was reported missing. After an exhaustive search of the castle Bishop Heinrich III was found dead in the fortress sewage system, with the garrote still around his neck.

During the 16th century the Bishopric sold the castle to the Danish Empire, which promptly began to improve the castle’s fortifications with the addition of the encircling moat, which established the citadel that exists today.  

Early in the 17th century the Danes ceded Saaremaa Island to Sweden. Lutheran preaching which began during the Reformation was now the formal religion of the land and the Swedish government exercised strict control over religious life with regular inspections by church officials to all the congregations across the island called “visitations.” These visits were to “inspect the religious beliefs of peasants and to root out the remnants of paganism and Catholicism.”

With the signing of the Treaty of Nystad at the end of the Great Northern War (1700 – 1721), Sweden ceded all of mainland Estonia and its islands to Russia. Estonia attained a brief independence at the end of WW1 which lasted for 22 years before Russia, as the Soviet Union, returned.

One of the towers of Kuressaare Castle had been used for centuries as a prison. But with the communist Red Army occupying the island in 1940, unheard-of horrors befell the castle, and its courtyard was used as the execution ground for ninety islanders. During WWII, Estonians were forcibly conscripted to fight in both the Russian and German armies. The Nazi Army occupied Estonia from 1941 to 1944. But with the Soviet Red Army advancing again, roughly 27,000 Estonians started a journey to freedom in Sweden from the islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa in the fall of 1944, an exodus from their homeland that would become known as “The Great Flight.”

After the Soviet Union annexed Estonia at the end of WWII, the communist regime forcibly deported 30,000 Estonians from every region of the country to Siberia. Few returned. Estonians caught trying to escape Saaremaa Island now were considered “enemies of the state,” and shot by the communist border guards who patrolled the island’s beaches.

In 1994, the fiftieth anniversary of the event, a monument called The Freedom Gate, acknowledging Sweden’s help and Estonia’s gratitude, was erected in Stockholm.  The inscription on it reads, “We came in small boats over the sea to escape from terror and dictatorship. Thousands of men, women and children reached the shore, among them workers, fishermen, farmers, intellectuals. We received a warm welcome, we were able to find work and to safely establish homes and families. We did never forget the country from which we were forced to leave and we strove for its freedom. Let the Freedom Gate testify to the humanity and tolerance of the Swedish people towards those who were looking for shelter in evil times and let it commemorate a tiny nation who found here a new home for itself.”  By Estonians and Estonian Swedes in Sweden – 1944-1994

The castle’s palace now hosts an interesting museum with exhibits dedicated to explaining the island’s complex history over the centuries. One of the exhibits honors the “Forest Brothers,” a loosely knit group of resistance fighters who opposed the Russian occupation and its security forces. They used their knowledge of the island’s forests and bogs to evade capture by hiding supplies underground in sealed milk cans. They disrupted the Soviet Union’s occupation efforts until most of them were hunted down and killed in the early 1950s. The most famous Forest Brother, August Sabbe, continued the fight, well into his seventies, until he died in a gun battle with KGB agents in 1978.

There is also an intriguing ethnological wing with a large collection of centuries-old island artifacts.

The next day we headed to the lighthouse at the tip of the Sõrve peninsula, only a 45-minute drive from Kuressaare. It was a beautiful drive and along the way we noticed the island’s eclectic bus stops. Some were quite ordinary, while one was lined with bookshelves, and served as a lending library. Another was enclosed with windows and filled with hanging plants. Many were colorfully painted.

We detoured to the ruins of the Church of the Nativity of Christ in the village of Tiirimetsa, population 50. (A small aside here: a village in Estonia doesn’t necessarily refer to a central collection of buildings. It is often just an area.)  It was the first of several historic churches on Saaremaa we planned to see over the next couple of days, but we nearly drove past it, as the ruin was nearly hidden in the shade of a tree line. Built in the 1870s, the once grand Russian Orthodox church was looted and vandalized by soldiers in the Soviet Red Army during WWII. Afterwards during the occupation, the church was used as a barn until the roof collapsed. Tall trees now reach for the sky from its sanctuary.

On the peninsula now, we drove down a serene country lane to the Jämaja kirik, and interrupted a husband and wife team mowing the grounds and vacuuming the sanctuary. Although not expecting visitors, they graciously let us enter. Something led me to believe the woman was the pastor of the church, but there was a language barrier. Donna, herself a pastor, thought I was mistaken. Her reasoning was that no congregation would ask their preacher to also clean. But I couldn’t imagine the congregation of the church being that large anymore, and multitasking might be needed. Built in the mid-1800s over the ruins of an early 13th century church, the historicist style building was very pretty in its pastoral surroundings.

Inside, the church was very bright and since the windows were open you could hear the sound of the sea rolling onto the beach, not far away. The blue tones of the sea are reflected in the church’s altar painting. The church’s cemetery is farther down the lane, on the water edge. 

A short distance away we hoped to have our ritual “drive a little then café,” morning coffee at the Family Café at Ohesaare bank, a rocky beach area reached by descending a shallow embankment.  It’s a popular spot where folks come to build small cairns, and there are literally thousands of these wobbly stone towers along the water’s edge. There is also a nice example of an Estonian windmill near the café. To our disappointment the restaurant was not open mid-week during the September shoulder season, even though checking its hours on Google Maps indicated otherwise.  In the larger towns this wasn’t an issue, but restaurants and cafes reducing their mid-week hours was something we had not anticipated.

When we reached the tip of the peninsula the Sõrve lighthouse towered over us. We didn’t climb it, but instead walked the meditative stone circle near its base.  At the water’s edge the sea was perfectly flat with the ebbing of the tide, and the view across the Baltic was endless.

Heading back to Kuressaare we stopped at a park in the village of Salme to investigate some wooden sculptures of people that we had noticed earlier as we drove by. Our closer inspection revealed they were depictions of Vikings. The sculptures link to the accidental discovery, during road construction in 2008 and 2010, of two large Viking burial ships, one 38ft long and the other 56ft in length and dating back to 700 AD. They contained the skeletal remains of 42 warriors plus artifacts, that included swords, spears, arrowheads, and dice in the grave sites. Historians speculate that the Vikings were defeated by the Saaremaa islanders, and that the survivors were allowed to pull the longships ashore to ritually bury their brethren.

Back in Kuressaare we strolled along the harbor’s promenade to the large whimsical sculpture of Suur Tõll ja Piret, a mythic Estonian couple, happily dancing in their birthday suits. The Folkloric heroes are especially beloved on Saaremaa, where legends portray the helpful giant as defenders of the islanders.

The castle was across the harbor, and we couldn’t resist taking some more photos of it in the late afternoon light.

Centuries of religious turmoil have embroiled Saaremaa, starting with the Northern Crusade’s imposition of Catholic Christianity on the islanders in the 13th century and ending with Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. But it’s left an enduring mark on the island with seven historic medieval churches that still stand, amazingly enough, and are actively used, albeit by a smaller number of worshippers than during their heyday.

We didn’t visit all of them, but we did use them as destinations to work our way across the island to explore other areas. After a tasty breakfast the next morning at Pagariäri | Vanalinna kohvik, a bakery and café in old town Kuressaare, we headed to Kaarma Church. Originally dedicated as The Peter and Paul Church, it dates to the late 1200s, making it one of the oldest churches on the island. The church was originally built without a steeple, as was the style at the time. But any structure this old was bound to have withstood numerous alterations and additions over the centuries. The church underwent its first major alteration in the 15th century, when the bell tower – the first on the island – was added to its façade. Later heavy buttresses were added on either side of the church entrance to prevent the front wall from collapsing. The inside was quite intriguing with a pulpit from 1645 and wonderful carved wood sculpture of St. Simon of Cyrene, along with other interesting pieces and primitive stone carvings.

Afterwards we headed to see the windmills we had zoomed past the day we arrived on the island. In use on Saaremaa since the 14th century, there were nearly 900 of the iconic windmills, or one for every two farms on the island by the early 1900s. In 1925 Angla was a prosperous village with 9 privately owned windmills built across its highest point to catch the wind for the mills to grind the grains harvested from the hamlet’s 13 farms. Most of the windmills across the island did not survive WWII, and many of the ones that did were left abandoned after “The Great Flight,” which saw the depopulation of the island. After Estonia’s 1991 independence, Alver Sagur acquired the property with the village’s remaining 5 windmills, and spent years restoring them with parts salvaged from other ruined mills from across the island. They are now the centerpiece of the Angla Windmill Hill and Heritage Cultural Center which Sagur envisioned to preserve Saaremaa’s unique agrarian culture. 

Four of them, the oldest dating to the early 1880s, are post mills typical to Saaremaa, where the whole windmill turns around a central post to bring the sails into the wind by physically moving the long arm projecting from its side. While the other one, built in 1927, is a Dutch mill, where only the top which houses the sail’s gear shaft rotates around the stationary base.

Only one windmill has been totally restored to working order and still is used occasionally to grind grain, and you are allowed to climb the ladders between floors to examine its inner workings. The museum also had an interesting collection of historic agricultural equipment. The center’s restaurant was also good, and we really enjoyed their coffee.

We did a quick detour to the old Russian Orthodox Church in Leisi, which was built in 1873, and has those distinctive orthodox crosses atop its domes, before backtracking to the medieval Karja church, only minutes away from the windmills.

Noticeably the church, from 1254, was built without a steeple, which was a common style for fortress sanctuaries in the 13th century. There was another car in the driveway, though we didn’t see anyone, and the church was locked. Next to the door was a wonderful carved stone relief sculpture with rustic figures. Posted on the door was the caretaker’s phone number, but no one answered when we called. But luck was with us, and as we were just turning to leave two people appeared walking down the driveway. One was waving a set of keys.

Inside, more relief carvings decorated some of the interior’s architectural elements.

Along with an elegant altar there were some partial remnants of medieval era decorative paintings, faded but still visible on the walls.

On the way back to Kuressaare we turned off the main road to visit the church in Valjala, the oldest preserved stone sanctuary in Estonia.  Construction of the church started in 1227 after the Livonia Crusades of the 13th century, which forced Christianity on the pagan indigenous populations of Saaremaa Island and the northern Estonian mainland. The islanders didn’t convert willingly and their resistance was fierce, requiring the church to be expanded and fortified by the end of the century.

The entrance to the church looked more like a door to a medieval castle, ready to repel any attempted siege, and of course it was locked, a dilemma that was fortuitously resolved with the arrival of a middle-aged woman coasting to a stop on her bicycle. With a friendly greeting, she unlocked the door and vanished as quickly as she had arrived. The sanctuary was dimly lit with ambient light from its tall narrow windows, which dramatically highlighted the sculptural wall decorations. There was also a highly carved Romanesque baptismal font that is believed to be original to the church and is thought to be one of the oldest pieces of carved stonework in Estonia. In the 17th century the church’s tower was added. Three centuries later lightning struck the tower and destroyed its steeple.

We locked the door behind us when we left and when we reached our car, parked across the street, turned to look back at the church. Our mysterious bike rider had returned to check the lock, “Thank you,” she called. We waved.

That evening, our last night in the village, we wandered about with no particular restaurant in mind, simply enjoying the town’s warm ambience on a nice fall day. We checked Saaremaa Veski, a restaurant located in a beautiful historic 1899 Dutch-style stone windmill. However, it was only open on the weekends during the shoulder season. Further on we came across the sculpture of a giant hand called “Suure Tõllu käsi,” the Hand of Suur Tõll, which playfully references the beloved folkloric hero always giving the islanders a helping hand. The artistic work with its abstract background subtly reminded us, after several days of exploring medieval churches and a castle, that we were still in the 21st century.

“Oysters,” prominently displayed on the placard in front of Vinoteek Prelude drew us inside. Rustically finished with stone walls and roughhewn ceiling beams, the restaurant had a wonderful warmth enhanced by candles lit on the tables. The menu featured locally sourced produce, fish and game meats, along with an extensive wine list. The oysters were fantastic, though they were imported from Brittany, as the shallow waters of the Baltic Sea stay too warm and are not salty enough to grow them.

The next morning, we were up early to explore the eastern part of the island before catching a late afternoon ferry back to the Estonian mainland and continuing on to Pärnu for the night.

Miraculously, the door to the Pöide church was open! Some renovation work on the tower end of the church was underway, and workers were erecting scaffolding. The early history of the first churches on Saaremaa tends to be quite confusing with overlapping dates. But it seems the ancient church in Pöide vies with the Valjala Church as the oldest Christian place of worship on the island, each being quickly built shortly after the conclusion of the Livonian Crusade, in 1227. The original Pöide chapel was the only surviving part of a Livonian castle destroyed during the St. George’s Night Uprising of 1343, which saw the indigenous islanders kill their German and Danish overlords, and “drown the priests in the sea.” The folks seeking refuge at the Pöide castle withstood a siege for eight days before surrendering their weapons, with the assurance they would not be used against them. They were lied to and when they exited the castle the islanders stoned them to death. By the end of the 13th century the Livonian Order had reconquered Saaremaa and the small original chapel was expanded to the east and west. At this time the roof was raised and vaulted. When the fortified tower was added it became the largest medieval church on the island.

The inside is cavernous and at one time had enough pews to seat 320 parishioners.

In 1940, on the day that Estonia was forced to become a member state of the Soviet Union, lightning struck the church’s tall spire that was erected in 1734. Some considered it an omen of future difficulties. The church did not fare well during WWII with Soviet troops looting anything of value, and burning the pews for firewood, before it was used for decades as a hay barn. Only some sections of early painted wall ornamentation and the heaviest stone architectural artifacts were left untouched. One of the pieces to survive is the ledger stone of a local Saaremaa knight entombed by the altar, its carving now partially worn away by centuries of footsteps over it. Today the church holds services twice a month and hosts religious music concerts.

There was no missing the onion top domes of the Russian Orthodox Neitsi Maarja Kaitsmise in the small crossroads village of Tornimäe. The 1873 church’s setting on a small rise above the village wonderfully highlights its beauty. With the signing of the Treaty of Nystad to end the Great Northern War in 1721, Sweden surrendered Estonia to Peter the Great’s Russian Empire. Originally the Orthodox church had an insignificant footprint on Saaremaa, but that changed in the mid-1800s with the unfounded rumors that the church would give land to the islanders, mostly Protestant serfs, if they converted to the Orthodox church. Consequently, nearly 65 percent of the island’s Protestant rural peasantry fell victim to this deception, and converted to the orthodox religion, in the false hope of attaining their own land.

Down the hill from the church, we parked at Meierei Kohvik, a small café, one of the only two businesses in the village, for lunch. I was driving and had just turned off the ignition when Donna asked if I heard the car horn blaring. I’ll admit that I am slowly going deaf, and even with the help of hearing aids still have difficulty. “No. It must be from that truck over there.” “It’s from our car and it’s very loud,” she responded. By this point on our trip we had been driving the car, without any trouble, for over a week, so this was new issue. It turns out that that I inadvertently pressed something on the key fob, but no combination of pressing buttons would undo it. Unfortunately, to our dismay, the car’s manual was totally in Estonian too. So, there we were sitting in the car in the middle of Saaremaa island with the horn blasting away. I was totally useless in this situation. Fortunately, Donna resolved the problem by doing a quick internet search. Peace and quiet reigned once again. The café was simply furnished, but the food, pastries and coffees were very good. They also had a nice selection of apple juice and cider produced on Saaremaa available for purchase.

We arrived to Illiku Laid, a small thumb of land protruding into the Vaike Strait which separates Saaremaa from its smaller eastern neighbor, Muhu Island, with hopes of seeing From the Sea, an environmentally conscious sculpture, depicting human-like creatures emerging from the water. It was created by the Estonian artist Ines Villido using lost fishermen’s nets and other garbage retrieved from the sea. It was created several years earlier for the annual 4 day I Land Sound festival that’s held on Illiku Laid every July. The festival is the event that turns this sleepy backwater into Estonia’s version of Burning Man and “brings together artists, musicians, and creatives from around the world, fostering cultural exchange and collaboration, with a strong emphasis on environmental sustainability and community engagement.” Disappointingly, the sculpture was not there, but on tour as part of an environmental awareness campaign. Though we did realize we had seen one of Villido’s other works, Trust the Whale during our wanderings in Kuressaare. Her Cigarette Butt – Stand Up Board, made with 29,000 butts collected during the 2019 festival, was on display along the waterfront.

Saaremaa Island receded in the rear-view mirror as we followed the road across the Väinatamm, a long narrow causeway and bridge that connects Saaremaa to Muhu, before ending at the Praamid ferry terminal in Kuivastu. The day had passed quickly, and we arrived in time to take an earlier ferry to Virtsu, on the Estonian mainland. We had purchased our tickets for a later crossing, but there were enough open cars spaces that we were allowed to drive aboard. There was barely enough time to climb to the observation deck before the ferry’s 30-minute crossing concluded. We headed to the coastal city of Pärnu for an overnight stay before continuing our travels to Riga, Latvia.

Till next time,

Craig & Donna