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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

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 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

An Estonian Road Trip: Part 3 – Hiiumaa Island: Ghost Ships, Churches and Fog

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Only the red hull of a fishing trawler tied against the breakwater was visible through the fog that cloaked the coast in its grey mist. We had just set sail from the port of Rohuküla, on the Estonian Mainland. Our destination, the village of Heltermaa on Hiiumaa Island, a short one hour crossing on the Praamid Car Ferry. We had spent the previous day exploring the charming town of Haapsalu. Fortunately, it was only a 15-minute drive to the ferry terminal, which left us with plenty of time to watch the fog-veiled activities of the port before our 8:30am sailing. Our ultimate destination at the end of the day would be a hotel in Kuressaare on the island of Saaremaa. We had debated going directly there, but thought three full days on Saarema would be too long, so we opted instead to spend a day investigating the southern part of its smaller neighbor, the island of Hiiumaa, before catching a late ferry from there to Saarema.

The fog seemed thicker as we disembarked and headed to the Pühalepa kirik, the oldest stone church on the island. We used to be fair weather photographers but have come to embrace the moody light that inclement days offer. The fog that morning provided us with numerous opportunities to hone our skills. Some fall colors were just beginning to show.

Archeological evidence found on the island’s Kõpu Peninsula date the first traces of habitation on Hiiumaa to nomadic seal hunters over 7000 years ago. Its early history is vastly unknown, but it is believed folks lived on the island seasonally, but there might have been small hamlets, as the island was near a Viking trading route. But curiously enough, the first written mention of Hiiumaa in a 1228 document by the Archbishop of Riga, creating the island as a Bishopric to Bishop Gottfried, refers to it as ‘Some empty island named Dageida.”

This might help explain why the island’s new Germanic settlers felt the need to build Pühalepa kirik, surprisingly without a steeple, as a safe haven fortress church in the early 1200s, since the indigenous pagan tribes across ancient Estonia were resisting foreign rule and the imposition of Christianity upon them. The early German influence on Hiiumaa faded after the island was conquered by the Swedish Empire in the late 1500s.

The small red roofed building next to the church is the 16th century crypt of the von Stenbocks, a noble Swedish family that had extensive land holdings on the island and played a significant role in the island’s economy at the time. The current shape of the church dates from an extensive 18th century renovation which added the steeple.

Suuremõisa Manor on the von Stenbock’s largest estate was nearby. The imposing Baroque-Rococo style country home featured a large central building with a wing on either side of a formal courtyard, where guests would arrive by carriage. Years later the property was acquired by Baron Otto Reinhold Ludwig von Ungern-Sternberg, a shipping magnate. Things didn’t go well for the Baron, and in 1803 he was accused of murdering one of his ship’s captains, racketeering, piracy, and multiple kidnappings. He was convicted of murder and sent to prison in Siberia.

Miraculously the building survived both world wars and the Soviet occupation of Estonia. Today the preserved manor house is used by two schools, one a technical college, the other a local primary school. The site maintains a very low-key approach toward visitors. After a receptionist signed us in we were able to visit several rooms where there were some amazing pieces of antique furniture featuring finely carved religious motifs. Even though the building has a contemporary use, we thought it still retained a grand understated elegance.

It was still foggy as we drove to our next destination: Kassari Chapel, nine miles away, along the island’s southern coast. After driving through a lushly forested landscape, we chuckled when turning onto a side road we saw a barn painted with palm trees. We speculated about how harsh the winters on the island might be and what tropical islands the painter dreamed of.

Much smaller than the Pühalepa kirik, the Kassari Chapel sits on the edge of a forest that backs to the waters of Õunaku Bay. A wooden church built in the 16th century stood on this site until it was replaced with this unique stone church, still covered with a thatch roof, in the early 1800s. All the worship services in the church take place by candlelight as the sanctuary has never had electricity. The quaint graveyard is almost lost in the woods, with headstones covered in moss and leaves. Many of the island’s notable poets, artists, teachers, and other island characters (a manor’s swineherd), along with several wealthy landholders are buried in the graveyard. Noticeably the wealthier folks had headstones made from imported marble, while the less well-off had iron crosses crafted by the local blacksmith.

At the crossroads nearby in the hamlet of Kassari stood a tall statue of the giant Leiger, carrying a large boulder on his shoulder, with two small islanders atop it. Leiger is an Estonian folk hero, and relative of Suur Tõll, with incredible strength, who lived on Hiiumaa. The sculpture captures the essence of one of the giant’s legendary feats when he built a bridge for the islanders across the waters of the Soela Strait that separate Hiiumaa from the island of Saaremaa, which lies to the south. According to legend, Säare Tirp, a long narrow, tail-like strip of land that protrudes from the mainland into the strait, is all that remains from his endeavor.

A place to break for coffee was difficult to find mid-week during the September shoulder season. While many eateries were noted on the map, they unfortunately were only open on the weekend. But luckily, Rannu Pubi in the village of Käina was open mid-week for lunch. Miraculously it seemed by the time we parked the car, the clouds parted, and we were able to eat outside in bright sunshine on the restaurant’s terrace. The food was delicious, and the coffee was welcomed.

The town of Käina was also an interesting stop with the ultra-modern Tuuletorn Experience Center, “a bit of a museum, a bit of a science center and a bit of a play world,” was a main attraction, along with the ruins of Martin’s Church. When it was built in the 16th century it was the largest church on the island, and could hold 600 people. Unfortunately, the church began to settle into the soil unevenly and in 1850 the corners were buttressed to prevent its collapse. During WWII the building was hit by an incendiary bomb, the resulting fire burned through the roof, and destroyed the interior.

Our stops earlier in the day were only minutes apart, so with the sun gloriously shining we returned to Pühalepa kirik and Suuremõisa Manor to take a few more outside shots on a now beautiful day before heading to catch the 4PM ferry from Sõru to Triigi, on Saaremaa.

The Rudolf Tobias House Museum, a centuries old farmstead, and the 1873 birthplace of the famous Estonian composer and organist, was on our route. The museum was closed, though we were able to walk around the grounds. Across the road we plucked some fruit from some wild apple trees.

First noted in 1254, Sõru was for centuries an important fishing harbor and its waterfront was lined with fish processing sheds. A ferry has run from the inlet since the time of Swedish rule, when two energetic young men first offered the service. The village’s ship builders used the plentiful pine and oak timber from Hiiumaa’s forests to construct vessels up until 1939, when Estonia’s last large, ocean-going wooden boat, the three-masted motor merchant ship Alar was launched, with the crack of a champaign bottle across its bow. Efforts are underway to fully restore the historic vessel after it was found in Denmark, after sailing the seas under several different flags. Today, Sõru is a small quiet harbor with a limited number of berths, a campground, and nautical heritage museum.

The ferry boat from Sõru to Triigi was much smaller than the morning ferry from the mainland, and only sails twice a day, so if you are traveling via car a reservation is highly recommended.

We boarded the 4PM ferry and struck up a conversation with a young woman who had spent several months bicycling camping her way from Paris through the Nordic countries and was now returning to Europe through the Baltic states. “It’s been a tremendous journey, but now that the weather is changing, it’s time to head south.” It was only mid-September, but there was a definite chill in the air, and we also wondered how many fair-weather days lay ahead.

Over the course of seven hours, and driving about 55 miles, we had a thoroughly delightful, leisurely day exploring the southern part of Hiiumaa Island. It was confirmation that our decision to detour through Hiiumaa, instead of heading directly to Saaremaa Island, was a good choice for us.

Till next time, Craig & Donna

An Estonian Road trip: Part 2 – Across the Pine Barrens to the Pakri Peninsula & the Gulf of Finland or Soviets, Swans, Windmills & a Polar Bear

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Dense forest lined the road, occasionally thinning to provide a glimpse of Tallinn Bay. It seemed as if we had only left Tallinn minutes earlier, quickly passing through its outer boroughs to enter a semi-wilderness beyond the city limits. To paraphrase; We weren’t in Tallinn anymore. Lively, and charming, one third (461,000) of Estonia’s 1,370,00 citizens call this “gem of the Baltic,” home.

Only 15 minutes from the center of Old Town, we were in the surprisingly different forested landscape of Eesti Vabaõhumuuseum, the Estonian Open Air Museum, an ethnological recreation of a historic fishing village on the shore of Tallinn Bay, with the wonderful mission of showcasing the country’s rural architecture and way of life during the 18–20th centuries.

A pleasant set of trails through the woodland connected 14 separate areas that featured different buildings.  Some of the buildings have docents dressed in traditional clothing to help explain how residents lived centuries ago. The wooden windmills were particularly interesting and the large sturdy log cabins surely would have made Daniel Boone envious.

Leaving Tallinn behind: this was the first stop of our 21-day road trip through Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. There was hardly any traffic on the roads through the sparsely populated countryside that traversed stretches of open fields, bogs, pine forests and swaths of beautiful birch trees. Vast tracks of forest still cover over fifty percent of Estonia’s territory. Set away from the roadway a bike path, just one of 7,230 cycling routes and bike trails in Estonia, loosely followed our route from the Open Air Museum to Keila in search of a mid-morning coffee break.

It was a surprisingly frustrating endeavor. Takeaway coffee from a gas station? No no. This was nearing a crisis situation for us. Those in the know understand that without that a coffee fix, life in the universe is imperfectly balanced. Fortunately, we found a very nice gourmet café, Cake Atelier, on the main road through Keila. Chatting with the owner about our trip through Estonia, she shared that we were in luck today, as it was one of the town’s twice-yearly craft and food festival days and pointed down the road.

We both like exploring local markets and this one in Keila, while very small, was a perfect local event to have stumbled across. Set up in the parking lot of a small strip mall, it wasn’t geared toward tourists. It was simply regional food purveyors sharing what they love to do. Samples were abundant. There were extraordinary amounts of smoked fish, pickles, sauerkraut, and baked goods, along with foraged lingonberries and wild mushrooms.

From July to October foraging for berries and other wild edibles is a popular activity in Estonia and explains why we saw so many cars parked at various spots along the road in the middle of nowhere. We ended up purchasing a bottle of artisanal Rose Hip liqueur from a middle-aged woman who had been an exchange student in Florida in the early 2000s. Her cordial, lovingly crafted from her grandmother’s ancient family recipe, was very tasty. We purchased a bottle and enjoyed it as a nightcap during the rest of our trip.

Next to the parking lot was a pretty church, Mihkli kirik, Keila’s St. Michael’s Church.  This wooden church was first erected here shortly after the Danes conquered northern Estonia in 1219. A century later a larger stone church was constructed to accommodate the worshippers living in the growing village. The present church replaced an older one destroyed during the Livonian War of the 16th century. There were some interesting stone carvings around the door to the church, and an intriguing cemetery that called for further investigation.

Across the way the Scottish House, with its majestic sculptures of highland stags in its courtyard, seemed incongruously placed. But we enjoyed resting, enveloped in its warm wood interior, and lunch was very good.

Our destination at the end of the day would be the guesthouse Pakri Baron, at the foot of the lighthouse, at the top of Pakri Peninsula. But we rarely drive the fastest and most direct route. Our road trips usually connect the dots, and resemble Ws or Zs to points of interest along the way. With that in mind we headed to the Keila Waterfall in Lõokese tee, Meremõisa – gotta love that name – 13km (8 miles) away.

Without any tall mountain ranges, Estonia really isn’t noted for its waterfalls. But the Keila Falls, the third largest in the country, were relatively close. The falls are in a pretty river park that has a trail over a wooden suspension bridge that crosses to the opposite side of the falls. There is a small renovated hydroelectric power plant at the Keila waterfall that first started to produce electricity in 1928; the river park was originally part of the extensive grounds of the Keila-Joa manor. The neo-gothic style building was built in 1833 and is one of Estonia’s best surviving examples of the popular 19th-century architectural style. Unfortunately, the grounds of the manor house/museum were closed the day we were there.

Nearby, the all-wood Kõltsu Manor built in the late 1800s was another fine example of Estonian architecture. The large home was commissioned by a baroness to be used as her summer residence. After World War II, the house and grounds were used by the communist Russians as one of their Pioneer Camps. The name sounds so benign, but in reality, while they did offer camp activities, they were Soviet re-education camps that indoctrinated Estonian youth with communist ideology. Today the manor hosts events, weddings, and outdoor concerts during the summer months.

The forests in Estonia have their own stories to tell. We did not stop at the memorial to the 2000 Jewish victims of the Nazi massacre in 1944 at the forced labor Klooga concentration camp. Closer to our destination we stopped in Paldiski to purchase the makings of a picnic dinner and breakfast the next morning at the guesthouse. Apple trees grew wild along the edge of the road. We picked a few for munching later. White with a pink center, they were probably an heirloom variety called “Eva Kuld,” similar to the Pink Pearl variety. The apples were delicious.

We had timed our arrival at Pakri Baron to coincide with the sunset in hope of getting some nice photographs of the lighthouse and the coast as the sun dropped. However, the weather was fickle. But the guesthouse was wonderfully situated next to the lighthouse, which towered over us, and was a stone’s throw from the Baltic Sea. The still active lighthouse was built in 1889, and during the summer months it’s possible to climb its 275 steps to the top. Unfortunately, it was closed during our visit in mid-September. In front of the lighthouse is a copy of sculpture called The Ship’s Last Sigh (1899) by the Estonian artist Amandus Adamson (1855–1929), who grew up near Paldiski. The sculpture was chosen by vote from 5 of Adamson’s works by the residents of the community in 2008 to commemorate their native son. The guesthouse even had a traditional Estonian sauna in a separate building, just one of the 100,000 saunas in a country of 1.3 million. It’s definitely a cultural thing.

It was still dreary the next morning as we started our drive to the resort town of Haapsalu on the west coast of Estonia. But there were places to explore along the way. We don’t recall how we actually came across the existence of the Ämari Pilots’ Cemetery, but most likely it was a result of scouring Google Maps to find points of interest along our route. More accurately it could be referred to as the Russian Pilots’ Cemetery.

What piqued our interest was the use of tail fins from crashed Soviets planes as headstones to mark the graves of the pilots that died in accidents while flying from the former Russian airbase, Suurküla Aerodrome, during the Cold War era. The cemetery’s discreet location, in a forest almost obscuring it from the road, was so that reminders of the peacetime deaths, from a high accident rate, would not affect the morale of the military base.

The cemetery appeared to be well cared for, but it’s a reminder of a painful and repressive 46 yearlong occupation by communist Russia, unlike the monumental Soviet propaganda sculptures that were in public spaces across the country, which were destroyed or sent to the Soviet Statue Graveyard in Tallinn. This reminder of a dreaded past, like an uncle no one wants to talk about, was left to rest in peace.

Nearby was another reminder of Soviet rule: Murru vangla was a Soviet forced labor camp and re-education center where prisoners were sent to work in a limestone quarry for the duration of their sentences. After Estonia’s independence the prison and quarry were closed and abandoned. Water eventually filled the quarry and partially submerged some of old mining structures and prison buildings. Set against tall, eroded dunes created from slag left over from processing the limestone, the water of the quarry shimmers like a Caribbean beach. The uniquely beautiful manmade setting has slowly become a popular destination for divers and swimming. What’s left of the prison was turned into a museum. There is an admission fee to access the quarry area, but since the day was still heavily overcast, we kept driving a short distance down the road to the Padise Monastery. Founded in the early 14th Century by monks displaced from a monastery in Latvia, it flourished until the St. George’s Night Uprising, when Estonians rebelled against Danish rule and the imposition of Christianity upon them and killed 28 monks. The building was later turned into a fortress, but by the early 1700s the stones of the deteriorating fortification were used to build an adjacent manor house. What’s left of the monastery’s ruins has been preserved and now operates as a museum, and the manor house is now a boutique hotel and spa.

One of the many things we enjoy about traveling during the shoulder season, aside from fewer tourists like us out and about, is the affordability of really nice hotel rooms. Our case in point was our midweek 2-night stay at Hermannuse Maja, which backed up to the ramparts surrounding Haapsalu Castle, cost only €97.00, and included breakfast. Parking was easily available on the street.

Around the corner from our hotel the Müüriääre café, with an attractive interior and tempting food display, was the perfect spot for lunch before exploring the unusually named Haapsalu Episcopal Castle on a cloudy afternoon.

In the late 1100s Christian missionaries followed German merchants along old Viking trade routes into the region known as Livonia, that is today Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The land was originally populated by pagan tribes, but unfortunately located between Orthodox Russia and Catholic Western Europe. Never happy with the status quo, religious zealots called for a Northern Crusade against the Baltic pagans, and with the blessing of Pope Celestine III, persecution began in 1195. The efforts to recruit an army was assisted by a papal bull which declared that “fighting against the Baltic heathens was of the same rank as participating in a crusade to the Holy Land.”  The medieval era was fierce, and bishops not only accompanied the crusaders spiritually into battle, but wielded swords alongside their troops fighting those heathen tribes. Haapsalu Episcopal Castle was built to project the power of the church during the thirty years it took to subjugate the region. In 1583 during the War of Reformation the Catholic stronghold fell to Protestant Sweden and the cathedral became a Lutheran church.

A tall defensive wall still encircles the nearly 1000-year-old castle. And the church has been nicely restored after surviving fires in 1668 and 1726 and neglect during the Soviet occupation when it was used as a granary. Though only the outer walls of the monastery, which was later converted to a palace, remain after the 1668 fire.

We enjoyed walking along the ramparts and climbing the castle’s tower. Surprisingly in mid-September we practically had the site to ourselves. Wandering through the ancient, vaulted dungeon-like rooms of the castle’s museum that showcased life in Medieval era was particularly interesting. The grounds of the castle are quite extensive, and one section in a now dry moat has a medieval themed playground with all sorts of structures for kids to climb on. During the summer the castle hosts a series of concerts, and the town welcomes tourists with a busy schedule of events.

Dinner that evening was across the street at the rustic Talumehe kõrts, which specialized in traditional Estonian dishes.

The next morning, we woke to a perfectly clear sky. The sunny weather was a welcome reprieve from several gloomy days, and we took full advantage of it to explore the picturesque town and walk along the Haapsalu’s bayside promenade. The walkway extends for quite a distance along the waterfront, and is flanked with a variety of architecturally interesting buildings along its length.

At one point we spotted a polar bear standing on an ice flow. A statue! It was one of several exotic animal sculptures, recreated from old photographs of the wooden figures made in the 1920s, for a section of the boardwalk called Africa Beach, a beloved small park from the 1800s. During the Soviet occupation the original wooden sculptures were used as firewood by Russian soldiers. With the Russians finally gone in 1991 the park was revamped as a children’s playground.

A short distance beyond the playground the walkway ends at the 5-story tall Tagalaht birdwatching tower. Climbing the tower offers views over the saltwater marshes of Haapsalu Bay, which is an important stopover for artic birds during their Spring and Fall migrations. Swans, cranes, and a variety of ducks can also be spotted.

The small town existed on the region’s fishing and agricultural base until a visiting physician observed that the local folk used sea mud to treat a number of ailments. He opened Haapsalu’s first therapeutic mud treatment resort in 1825. It soon became a popular destination for several generations of Russia’s czars and aristocracy. A bench along the path commemorates the spot from which the composer Tchaikovsky watched the sunrise when he summered there.

Walking back to town we passed the distinctive green onion shaped dome of Haapsalu’s Maria-Magdaleena kirik, a Russian Orthodox church. The church was consecrated on July 21, 1852. In the audience was the son of Czar Nikolai I, Alexander (later Czar Alexander II, Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland.)

We worked our way across town to Lake Väikese and savored a delicious lunch overlooking the water from the enclosed patio at Wiigi Kohvik, before following a walking path along the water that circled the lake. Along the pathway we noticed that nearly every home on the lake had a traditional Estonian sauna in their back yard. They were all different sizes and shapes, with some constructed with wood and others totally covered with earth. We wondered if folks jumped into the lake as part of their sauna ritual. Brrr! Just thinking of it made me shiver.

Overall, we had a very nice tme in Haapsalu. The next morning, we checked out early and drove to the harbor at Rohuküla to catch the first ferry of the day to Heltermaa on Hiiumaa Island.

Till next time, Craig & Donna

The North Coast 500, kind of – Part 4: To The Isle of Lewis & Harris or Standing Stones, Blue Skies and Rain

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Under layers of clothing, our bones still shivered as we stood bundled against an unusually cold August wind on the top deck of the CalMac ferry.  The port of Uig on the Isle of Skye vanished on the horizon behind us as we steamed across the Little Minch channel to the Isle of Lewis & Harris in the Outer Hebrides, the island chain off the west coast of mainland Scotland.

On reading how busy the summer ferries are we had made our car reservation for the passage in the early Spring, as soon as the CalMac timetable for the year was published.

Our interest in Scotland has been piqued ever since hearing the entrancing song and watching the intriguing landscapes in the opening credits to the Outlander television drama. The ancient standing stones seemed to call us, and what better place to see them than on Lewis & Harris. And if you have made it all the way to the Isle of Skye, it only takes a little more effort to reach the outer island.

The two-hour ferry crossing passed quickly under a brilliant blue sky, but within fifteen minutes of landing in Tarbert we were caught in a shower while taking pictures of the small port. The weather changes quickly all across Scotland, even more so in the Outer Hebrides, which feel the full force of the North Atlantic winds.

Within minutes it was sunny again as we drove across the interior of the island to the Gealabhat B&B in Callanish, our base for two nights, and within walking distance of the legendary Calanais Standing Stones site 1. https://www.9callanish.co.uk/

Relentless winds over the millennia have left an austere yet beautiful gently rolling landscape of boglands and heaths, with only the hardiest of trees left standing sporadically about on the island. Though it’s the perfect terrain for the native Scottish Blackface and the Hebridean sheep breeds which have adapted well to the island’s rugged terrain and harsh climate.

It was late in the afternoon by the time we arrived at the standing stones, which was perfect as the weather was still nice and we had this amazing site practically all to ourselves. Older than Stonehenge, the circle is believed to have been erected by a thriving ancient community nearly 5000 years ago, around 2900BC, as a celestial calendar that aligns with the orbits of the sun and moon.

Surprisingly, the extent and height of the complex arrangement of over 50 stones was not fully realized until 1857, when peat cutting around the site revealed the full extent of the impressive, megalithic ritual structure, which was mostly covered by 6 feet of peat.

Do we hold hands and dance around them, meditate or dare touch them?  Over the next two days we returned at sunrise and sunset to experience the wonder of this magnificent site.

A brief shower passed, but by the time we turned into the driveway of the B&B a rainbow arched across the sky. A good prediction for the weather ahead, we hoped.

Gregor’s friendly, “Ceud Mile Failte,” (one hundred thousand welcomes) greeted us as he ushered us into his family’s traditional croft home that has been operating as a charming three-bedroom inn since the early sixties. He hadn’t noticed the rainbow and joked of his now lost opportunity to discover the pot of gold. We didn’t realize when we made our booking that the proprietor was also a popular Gaelic TV chef who hosts a cooking program produced on the island. The Outer Hebrides are one of the few areas in Scotland where Scottish Gaelic is still spoken as the everyday language. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EAvaVkjRo4

Staying at this B&B was one of the nicest experiences we had while traveling through Scotland. While the rooms are small, they were tastefully decorated in meticulous details that included Harris Tweed draperies and throw pillows, woven on the island, and we enjoyed listening to a small flock of sheep baa-ing under our window. The meals that Gregor created for breakfast and dinner using locally sourced food stuffs, and seasonal vegetables freshly harvested from his garden were delicious. Cordial conversations with the other guests around the communal dining table were also a highlight of our stay.

With only one full day on Lewis and Harris, we headed north to the Port of Ness and the Butt of Lewis Lighthouse, a distance of 35 miles, 57km, on the A858. Though only an hour journey without stopping it would take us much longer, with multiple stops along the way and back.

The island is actually one large land mass connected by a narrow isthmus at Tarbert. But the delineation is more topological, with the northern part of the Island, Lewis, being rolling moor and peatlands, while the southern part of the island, Harris, is more mountainous. The name “Lewis” comes from the Old Norse “Ljóðhús,” which is marked on medieval Norwegian maps of the island. Harris is derived from the Old Norse word “hærri,” meaning ‘higher’, which references the hillier terrain of the southern part of the island.

It was a cold morning and a tease of blue sky showed through the clouds as we walked the path to the summit of a knoll where the Dun Carloway Broch ruins commanded the spot. Brochs are cylindrical cone shaped, dry stone towers that stand about 40ft, 12m, tall when complete. The unique Iron Age structures, with an inner and outer wall design, separated by a stairway that winds to the top, is a building method only found on Outer Hebrides, Orkney, Shetland, and the Scottish mainland.

The Dun Carloway Broch is believed to have been built around 200BC by a local chief as a symbol of his status. Excavations and oral tradition show that the dwelling was used almost continuously across the centuries, up until the 1870s when it was last used by “a respectable looking family.” From the knoll we watched a farmer with his dog herd a flock of sheep into a pen.

At Gearrannan we experienced what life was like in a blackhouse village. The homes in the 1700s coastal hamlet share the long elliptical shape and utilitarian design of the turf house in Glencoe, where folks lived in one end of their dwelling and kept their animals in the other. The blackhouses are more substantially built utilizing thick stone walls with an earthen core, and layers of thatch roofing held down by weighted fishing nets. With a fire in the hearth, they provided a welcome shelter away from the harsh weather of the Outer Hebrides. Folks lived in the village until the 1970s when the last elderly residents were moved into newer housing with indoor plumbing, and which didn’t require the continual maintenance that the ancient blackhouses did.

The village remained deserted until 1989, when a local preservation trust set about restoring the dwellings of the village. Today it’s a remarkable living museum with craft demonstrations in some buildings and old-timers sharing tales of life on the island. Some are the individual blackhouses are even available for vacation rental and one is also used as a hostel for budget conscious travelers. https://www.gearrannan.com/

Cloudy skies continued to follow us as we stopped in Bragar to see the Whale Bone Arch. This is an easy site to miss; we drove by it twice, as it wasn’t well marked and it’s set back from the road, but it is very close to the Grinneabhat Community Center. The story of the arch starts in 1920 when local fishermen spotted the carcass of a dead 80ft long blue whale with an unexploded harpoon imbedded in its back. They decided to tow the monster to a more accessible location in Bragar Bay, where hopefully a commercial whaling company would retrieve it and pay a reward for finding the valuable hulk that was worth about $30,000.00 in 1920.  A whaling boat from Harris, on the southern part of the island, came but was unable to remove the now firmly beached whale.  The enormous carcass began to rot. Island authorities in Stornoway were contacted, and they expressed interest in the problem, but failed to respond. It wasn’t until local folk feared death from a putrid plague blowing into the village from the rotting remains that authorities told them, it’s your problem, dispose of it yourself. Villagers shared the now stinky task of boiling the blubber down to oil for casking and bottling.  Eventually only the skeleton remained and the local Postmaster and general merchant, Murdo Morrison, expressed an interest in taking the harpoon and the whale’s lower 25ft long jawbone, to create an arch over the gate to his home. It had been almost a year since the whale was first discovered when a team of horses pulled the 4 ton jawbone along a sandy track on a sled to Morrison’s home. One day the charge in the harpoon exploded as Morrison was cleaning it. Fortunately, he had it pointing away from himself at the time, and the only damage was a large hole left in the wall of his workshop. After slowly deteriorating for nearly a century, the jawbone underwent major restoration in 2000 and was encased in fiberglass to preserve it.

“Drive a little, then café,” we like to say, and the perfect spot was just across the road at the Grinneabhat Community Center. It’s an interesting spot with a no-frills café, serving good pastries and coffee. It also has accommodations for tourists to rent. https://www.grinneabhat.com/ After our coffee we stopped in one of the halls to browse a small community sale, where local folk had tables setup and were selling hand knitted hats, scarves, and mittens along with various knick-knacks. To Donna’s delight, she found a lovely teapot set in purple and green, resembling the thistle, which is Scotland’s national flower and emblem, and a symbol of Scottish independence.   The ceramics were made on Lewis & Harris by Scotia Ceramics, a company that is now closed. It was only £5, and it’s a treasured souvenir from our trip to Scotland.

Farther along we stopped at a recreated shieling hut built by the Barvas and Brue Historical Society in 2017. These small shepherds’ huts built of stone and thatch were usually windowless and only had one door that was placed on the side of the building that was away from the prevailing winds. The huts were once a familiar feature that dotted the landscape across the vast windswept moorlands of Lewis & Harris. They were purely spartan, but they provided shelter against the cold and rain as folks tended their flocks of sheep throughout the year, as they moved them between grazing areas. 

Golden sand and turquoise blue water filled our view as we stood on the cliff above the tidal harbor at the Port of Ness and watched seagulls circle above a fisherman on the breakwater, in hope of retrieving scrapes of bait. The Caribbean color was unexpected for an island surrounded by the North Atlantic. The man-made harbor experiences an extreme tidal range in late August that swings between 15ft at hightide but leaves the boats in the harbor waterless and resting on the sandy bottom at low tide. The Breakwater café, on the heights above the harbor, with its huge picture windows overlooking the coast, was the perfect spot for lunch. The food was very good and reasonably priced.

Revitalized after lunch, we headed to the northernmost point on the island, the Butt of Lewis Lighthouse. It was built in 1862 on a ferociously wind battered headland surrounded by a raging ocean. We dared not to get too close to the edge for fear of being swept away.

Earlier we had passed St Moluag’s Church, spotting it in the middle of a large field surrounded by grazing sheep on our way to the lighthouse, but we had a difficult time actually finding the path between the croft houses that led to it. Eventually we spotted an obscure sign and small pullover between the homes on the main road from Port Ness to the village of Eoropaidh. The parking area is about 1000 ft before the turn to the lighthouse.

We followed a fenced pathway, no frolicking with the sheep permitted, to the ancient stone building. Outside behind a low stone wall stood a tall, intricately chiseled Celtic cross. The door to the sanctuary was open. Once inside, it took a few minutes for our eyes to adjust to the darkness, but finally a large interior was revealed with a small stained-glass window behind the altar, which brought a bit of bright color into the monochrome earth toned interior. Otherwise, it was a chilly space that didn’t appear to have heat, but we saw cushions on the church pews, which indicated that it was still used for services.

Tradition believes the church was built in the 12th century, above a 6th century ruin, by a Norse prince who had converted to Christianity. It’s named for Saint Moluag who, with Saint Columba, were the first Irish missionaries to bring Christianity to the people of Scotland. Surveys reveal the church underwent several expansions and alterations until the 16th century but has since remained true to its ancient core. We headed back towards our B&B after this.

Obsolete, abandoned red phone booths, some just seemed randomly placed in the middle of nowhere, were a curiosity across the island, and always reminded us of Superman and Dr. Who.

Different configurations of standing stones can be found in various locations across the island. But one of the more intriguing ones was the single stone, Clach An Truishal, in the hamlet of Baile an Truiseil. It’s a gigantic lichen covered monolith that looks like a dagger thrust into the earth by the hand of God. Oddly, it stands alone, within sight of the ocean, down an isolated farmer’s track, between two stone walls that separate crofter’s fields. The 19ft tall stone was once part of a larger stone circle, but unfortunately, in the early 1900s the smaller stones were broken apart and incorporated into the nearby field walls and also used as lintels in several local crofter’s homes. Though as ancient as the Calanais Standing Stones, local tradition believes the Clach An Truishal stone marks the grave of a great Norse warrior or, alternately, is the site of a momentous clan battle, the result of cattle rustling, between the Morrisons and the Macaulays in the mid-1600s.

Just off the A858 in Shawbost, we followed a gravel trail through rolling heathland to an ancient Norse mill and kiln set along a stream that flowed to the sea. During the Viking era the water-powered technology of the mill was essential for grinding grains like barley and oats into flour, a staple of the islander’s diet during that era. The kiln next to it would have been used to dry the grains before grinding, as well as for smoking fish and meat for preservation. Pottery vessels known as a ‘crogan’ or ‘craggan’ would also have been fired in the kiln.

Back in Calanais we stopped at the standing stones again to enjoy the wonder of them one last time before dinner and our departure from the B&B the next morning.

We thoroughly enjoyed Gregor’s hospitality and cooking skills, but regrettably it was our last day on the island, and we hadn’t toured the southern region of Harris. Hopefully, we will get the opportunity to return one day to explore more of Lewis & Harris, along with the other Outer Hebrides islands. But our plan for the day revolved around our reservation for the 3pm ferry from Stornoway to Ullapool back on the Scottish mainland.

Spontaneously we turned off the main road after we spotted several standing stones in a field far from the road. This turned out to be Callanish Stone Circle II which is set in a fenced cow pasture. To our delight several hairy coos were vigorously scratching their backs and necks against the ancient obelisks. It was funny to think that the monuments, once an ancient society’s connection to the celestial heavens, were also humble, utilitarian bovine rubbing posts.

Instead of taking the A858 and A859 to Stornoway, we chose to follow Pentland Road, a weaving, slow, 12-mile-long route through the Lewis highlands. The area is a barren, treeless wilderness of rolling heathland that stretches in all directions as far as the eye can see. A lone car whisked by going in the opposite direction.  Sheep, along with an occasional hawk circling overhead, were the only other signs of life.

It’s difficult to believe that the island was ruled by basically two clans starting with the Macleods of Lewis in the 1300’s, but their 300-year stewardship was fraught with feuds and various rebellions. In 1598, King James VI sent the “Fife Adventurers,” a group of lowland gentry and farmers from the Scottish mainland to Lewis to establish a colony, but the clans defeated their efforts. In 1610 the powerful Clan Mackenzie of Kintail, in the Scottish Highlands, purchased the Fife Adventurers’ charter for the island, and successfully subjugated the island’s rebellious clans.

The Mackenzie Clan remained in control of the island for nearly 250 years until 1844, when it was sold due to financial difficulties, to the Far East trade magnate Sir James Matheson, for £190,000. Shortly afterward he built Lews Castle on a hill across the harbor from Stornoway. He also oversaw the “clearances” of over 500 crofting families from the island to make room for industrial scale sheep farming. Many of the tenant farmers, left without homes, were forced to emigrate to Canada or other British colonies to seek better opportunities.

After Matheson’s death the island was eventually sold for £143,000, in 1918, to William Hesketh Lever, Lord Leverhulme, the soap magnate and founder of the business that would eventually become the Unilever conglomerate. He invested heavily in expanding Stornoway’s burgeoning fishing industry, and other projects with the hope of lifting the town’s economic prosperity.

The islanders resisted his plans to make them employees, and in 1923, a now discouraged Leverhulme gifted Lews Castle and 64,000 acres of land to the Stornoway Trust, a community-owned land trust. During WWII the castle was used as a military hospital and then served as the home of Lews Castle College until 1988, when structural issues forced the school to relocate. After extensive renovation and modernization the castle is now a multi-function destination that offers luxury accommodation, holds a museum dedicated to island life, and hosts weddings and other events. 

On the far side of Stornoway we viewed the Aiginis Farm Raiders’ Monument. Our first thoughts upon seeing the hull shaped monument was that it must mark the site of a Viking raid, but we were totally off in our speculation, as the twin pillars commemorate a January 1888 event in which 400 brave men and women from Point Peninsula, risking imprisonment for their actions, stormed the farm in an attempt to reclaim it for small-scale crofting. This was still the era of the “clearances,” and folks were tired of being forced out of their ancestral homes for the benefit of a few landlords who wanted to raise sheep and cattle. The government sent in the army to take back control of the farm, but by the early 1900s, after other protests across the Outer Hebrides and the Highlands, land reforms were slowly underway, and Aiginis Farm was divided into a number of croft plots.

The ancient ruins of Eaglais na h-Aoidhe, St Columba’s Church, were just past the Raider’s monument. It’s an intriguing old church that is believed to have been first built in the 6thcentury, with the chapel and churchyard later becoming the burial site for the Macleod Chiefs of Lewis. Slowly the boggy soil of the cemetery is swallowing many of the historic gravestones under the ground.

Being from the US, the land where every store is open seven days per week, we were surprised to find that most businesses and restaurants were closed on Sundays in Stornoway. Fortunately, we found the Hebridean Bakehouse, a standing-room only, petite pastry shop that makes the most lusciously sinful sweet and savory temptations. There was a long line out the door and down the block. We enjoyed a tasty picnic in the car before driving onto the ferry for the crossing to Ullapool on Scottish mainland.

 “Slán go fóill,” till next time, Craig & Donna.