Travel Blogger

Argentina – Buenos Aires: Empanadas, Tombs & Tango

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The ferry vibrated gently as the engines were switched into reverse as we approached the Buquebus ferry terminal in Buenos Aires. We had departed earlier from Montevideo, Uruguay, and hoped to view the Argentinian coastline from the Río de la Plata estuary, as the first Spanish explorers did in the early years of the 16th century. But we hadn’t expected the ferry not to have an open observation deck, and instead had to contend with the view, or lack of view, through hazy saltwater-etched windows.

Seasoned travelers on this route between Montevideo and Buenos Aires had already called for the ride share services of Cabify, inDriver, Didi, Easy Taxi or BA Taxi and waited curbside in front of the terminal. By the time the ferry docked there were no available drivers for 45 minutes. We were among the last to leave the port that morning.

Our first impressions of this wonderfully cosmopolitan city were formed along the 16-lane wide – yes, 16 lanes – Av. 9 de Julio. Despite its width it is a pleasant tree-and park-lined esplanade, that extends for 27 blocks through the city and reminded us of the area around Central Park in Manhattan. Older buildings from the 18th and 19th century shared the skyline with more modern buildings than we expected, as well as the first of many street murals dedicated to the football player Lionel Messi #10 for Argentina national football team, and the country’s superstar at the moment. The sidewalks were bustling with activity. We wondered how we would ever cross 16 lanes of traffic on foot.

Our hotel for the next six nights, Urban Suites Recoleta, was across the street from Buenos Aire’s historic Cementerio de la Recoleta. We soon learned that most landmarks and hotels in the neighborhood ended with Recoleta in their name. The cemetery from our balcony looked like an ancient lost city.

The next morning, we explored the immediate neighborhood around the hotel that was full of activity with delivery trucks off-loading produce and dog walkers leading their packs of small dogs to the parks. We eventually crossed the Puente Peatonal Dr. Alfredo Roque Vítolo, a brightly painted footbridge across the roadway that connects the parks around the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes to the Universidad de Buenos Aires. The Facultad de Derecho subway station is located at the foot of the bridge. It is a terminus on the H-Line, one of Subte’s (from Subterráneo de Buenos Aires) six lines, that can get you nearly anywhere in this sprawling metropolis. Opened in 1913, Buenos Aires had the first subway in South America.

The Floralis Generica, a unique abstract aluminum sculpture, an iconic symbol of the city, centered the Plaza de las Naciones Unidas next to the school. The 23m (75ft) tall mechanical flower with six petals which opens in the morning and closes at night was a gift to the city by the Argentine architect Eduardo Catalano in 2002. Walking paths circled the sculpture and offered different viewing perspectives of the flower that the sculptor visualized to “represent all the flowers in the world.”

Walking back towards our hotel we veered down Avenida Alvear, seven blocks that were once Buenos Aire’s Park Ave or Champs-Élysées at the turn of the 20th century.  It is known for the art nouveau-influenced Belle Époque architecture of the old mansions along the street that have now been converted into hotels and embassies. Unfortunately, many of the building facades were hidden by the trees that line the street.

Long before Starbucks was a thing, the Porteños, “people of the port,” as the citizens of Buenos Aires are called, developed a strong coffee culture that coincided with the arrival of several waves of Italian immigrants that began in the mid-1800s. The result is a city where it’s nearly impossible to get a bad cup of coffee. One block over from Avenida Alvear on Av. Pres. Manuel Quintana our “walk a little then café” philosophy was easily satisfied at La Fleur de Sartí, Confiserié Monet, and Cafe Quintana 460, where espresso-based coffee drinks rule.

When we travel, our mid-afternoon lunch tends to be our big meal of the day, so we end up looking for supermarkets to buy crackers, cheese and fruit to snack on later. Near our hotel there was a large Carrefour Market on Av. Vicente López. Around the corner from the supermarket was a block of traditional shops with two butcheries, a fish monger, fruit stands, and a cheese store. Though our best find in the neighborhood was Möoi Recoleta, which had a pleasing interior and excellent food. To our surprise it’s part of a small local restaurant chain.

That afternoon we timed our visit to the Cementerio de la Recoleta after the surge of the morning’s tour buses had departed. It’s a huge cemetery with a labyrinth of narrow passages through the grand mausoleums of Buenos Aires’ who’s who of notable citizens and wealthy families.

Some were very well kept, while others were under renovation, and a number appeared forgotten, with their doors broken and façades crumbling, as if the family line had ended or a once great fortune had been lost. One was highlighted by a whimsical statue of a woman roller skating atop her own tomb.

Many had small bronze plaques attached to the side of their tomb, hinting at the deceased’s illustrious career. Several had death masks protruding from the side of their mausoleums. The first one we happened across suddenly as we rounded a corner, and the very life-like stone face protruding from the side of a tomb, literally scared the wits out of me.

Surprisingly, Evita Peron’s tomb was one of the simplest structures. Immortalized since the Broadway musical “Evita,” by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice opened its curtain in 1976, and the following 1996 movie starring Madonna, folks have been intrigued by the controversial legacy of Eva Duarte. It is the rags to riches story of a poor country girl, the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy rancher, who moved at the age of 15 to Buenos Aires and found fame as a radio and film actress, which resonated in the barrios of the “Paris of South America.” She found love at the age of 26, marrying 48-year-old Colonel Juan Perón, in 1945, two years before he was elected President of Argentina.

Passionate and combative, as Argentina’s First Lady she used her influence to champion social justice and worker’s labor rights, and was endeared to the less fortunate who saw her as the voice of the people. Her early death at the age of 33 from cancer saddened the nation and calls were made for her canonization. Flags across the country flew at half-mast for ten days. Blocks around the Presidential Palace were filled with mourners, and an estimated 3 million people watched the horsedrawn caisson carry her coffin through the streets of the city during her state funeral. Her embalmed body in its glass coffin was displayed for two years in her office in the Ministry of Labor building, as plans for a memorial that was taller than the Statue of Liberty were made.

After a 1955 military coup Juan Perón fled to exile in Spain, and the new military dictatorship secretly disappeared Evita’s corpse for 16 years. First it was secreted away in various locations across Buenos Aires until one “officer mistakenly shot his pregnant wife while guarding the corpse in his attic.”  The military dictatorship then enlisted the “covert help of the Vatican” to hide her body away in a crypt in Milan, Italy’s famous Cimitero Monumentale, for 16 years under a false name. In protest “Where is the body of Eva Perón?” was spray painted on walls all across Argentina.

In 1971, Evita’s body was exhumed and flown to Spain where Juan Perón and his third wife allegedly kept the “coffin on display in their dining room.” In 1973 Peron returned to the Presidency of Argentina, with his third wife as Vice President, but died a year later. The saga continued to get weirder when an anti-dictator revolutionary group, the Montoneros, “stole the corpse of General Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, whom they had also previously kidnapped and assassinated,” to use as a bargaining chip to get the third Mrs. Peron to return Evita’s body to her beloved country. Subsequent governments have gone to great lengths to secure Evita’s hopefully final resting place, in a subterranean tomb with trap doors and false caskets to deter grave robbers, within her father’s Duarte family mausoleum in Cemeterio de la Ricoleto.

Across the street was the Gomero de la Recoleta – Árbol Histórico, a majestic 225-year-old rubber tree planted in 1800. Over the decades its huge buttress trunk has grown to support a 50m (164ft) wide canopy, with tree limbs so long that wooden poles and sculptures are needed to support their weight.

Behind it, we found a reprieve from the hot February afternoon, and an early dinner at Bartola, which served an excellent lemonade, and has pleasant décor along with a rooftop terrace.

Buenos Aires is full of interesting street murals, and we spent the next morning wandering about searching for them.

That afternoon, after exploring farther afield from our hotel, we took a rideshare across the city to La Boca, a colorful neighborhood that is also the location of La Bombonera stadium, home of the world-famous Boca Juniors football club, the team on which some of Argentina’s legendary football players first played. Our route eventually took us below the elevated portion of Rt1 amidst a forest of concrete pilings painted with a vast array of creative street murals in an area named Silos Areneros. We found the area intriguing, but a tad sketchy, so we kept going.

La Boca was originally Buenos Aires’ first port at the mouth of the Riachuelo River, as it flows into the Río de la Plata. It has always been a bustling working-class neighborhood, “filled with all kinds of people, dockworkers, fishermen, musicians, prostitutes, thieves, socialists, anarchists, and artists.” But it grew substantially with the arrival of new immigrants in the 1800s and early 1900s.  Hastily constructed tenements called conventillos were built with galvanized metal walls and roofs and brightly painted with whatever left over colors were available from the shipyards, in an effort to cheer up the area.

La Boca is one of the city’s vibrant neighborhoods where tango originated on its streets during the hot summer months and was perfected in the bars along Caminito and Magallanes during winters of the late 1800s.

Today, satirical figures adorn many of the balconies along Caminito and the adjacent streets, and poke fun at politicians, rival football teams or celebrities. Though we think you need to be Argentinian to fully appreciated the humor behind them.

A mural at the end of Caminito commemorates the Bomberos Voluntarios de La Boca (La Boca Volunteer Firefighters), Buenos Aires’ first fire brigade, formed in 1884.

Sadly, we found the wonderfully colorful area was oversaturated with cheap tourists’ shops heavily devoted to everything football, especially Lionel Messi’s #10 blue and white football shirt, which was available everywhere.

Afterwards we headed to the dockside area of Puerto Madero. Built in the late 18th century the port helped support Argentina’s economic growth during WWI and WWII as the country’s beef and food stocks were sent to a war-torn Europe. But the viability of the port declined as the size of merchant ships became larger and containerization took hold, until eventually the port was abandoned for many decades. A masterplan for the port’s redevelopment was realized in 1989 with plans to renovate some of the old warehouses along one side of the quay into restaurants and shops, while land on the other side would be developed into a mixed-use area of offices and residential towers, with the two sides connected by pedestrian-only bridge.

The redevelopment along the Puerto Madero waterfront was a great success and created a strikingly beautiful, new waterfront neighborhood. Its reflective skyline and restaurants along the old docks continue to be destinations for both locals and tourists. Us included! It was a great place to people watch as folks strolled along the quay and over the footbridge. Towering cumulonimbus clouds glowed with golden light, as the sunset silhouetted the “Presidente Sarmiento,” an old three-masted sailing ship that is now a nautical museum.

We both grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey and worked in New York City for a while, but living in Manhattan never appealed to us. It wasn’t until we started traveling and experienced living in some foreign cities through short-term rentals that we grew to appreciate the vitality that city life offers.

Mysteriously, overnight the Parque Intendente Torcuato de Alvear in front of the historic Centro Cultural Recoleta building was transformed into a sprawling art and crafts festival, that to our surprise happens every Saturday and Sunday. Artisans’ tents and tables lined nearly every path through the sprawling park that was filled with folks shopping and buskers playing to the crowd. This was probably the best crafts market we’ve been to, as the quality and variety of items offered were very impressive. If our suitcases had been bigger we would have made lots more purchases.

For many years the Cultural Center was repainted frequently with colorful murals, which added a nice flair to its otherwise stoic facade. Sadly, this policy was discontinued in 2024, and the building is now covered in a monochromatic “Pompeyan Red.” The decision has received a mixed public reaction, but hopefully the verdict will be reversed in the future. The historic 1732 building was originally the convent of the Recoleto monks, for whom the Recoleta neighborhood is named, as well as part of Our Lady of Pilar Basilica, the second oldest church in Buenos Aires. Over the decades as the influence of the church waned after Argentina’s 1810 May Revolution the building was used as a hospital, military barracks, asylum, and an art school before being renovated into an exhibits and events space in the 1980s.  

That afternoon the tree lined blocks around Plaza Serrano and Plaza Armenia in the charming Palmero Soho neighborhood were so different from the high-rise towers of Recoleta, and reminded us of Barcelona & Madrid, with the wonderful mix of sidewalk cafés, along with trendy shops. Colorful street murals brightened many of the narrow alleys.

Across from Plaza Armenia we passed the Las Petunias restaurant which was full of lively diners at lunchtime.  But we continued our wanderings and returned around 15:00 when the restaurant was quieter, though there were still enough other people dining to make it a nice experience. We shared Los Tablones de Carnes for two. The grilled meats were excellent, and it was the best parrillada we had during our stay in Buenos Aires.

Sunday, we headed to the Feria de San Telmo, a weekly street fair that spans eleven blocks of Av. Defensa, a street known for its antique stores and art galleries. San Telmo is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Buenos Aires and has striven to retain its 19th and early 20th century character with well-preserved buildings.

The street was full of activity, but the feira was really more like a flea market featuring clothing and everyday items with only a handful of artists’ and craftsperson’s tables mixed in between. Buskers worked the street corners, and a puppeteer dazzled a young audience. Occasionally a street mural graced a side street.

Along the way the ornate mausoleum of General Manuel Belgrano stood beneath the towers of Basílica Nuestra Señora del Rosario. The church was constructed in 1753 and British soldiers sought sanctuary here after a failed invasion of the city in 1807. General Belgrano was one of the founding fathers on Argentina’s independence and is also credited with designing the country’s flag.

The Mercado San Telmo was our destination for lunch. It is a cavernous hall set in an 1897 building that resembles a Victorian era train station with an ornate iron superstructure supporting a glass roof.  The hall’s traditional produce stands, butchers and bakers, now share the space with takeaway restaurants, and antique stalls. But it was crazy with activity on a Sunday afternoon, and we vowed to return if we had the chance. Instead, we ate at Havanna, a small café chain across Buenos Aires, that we had eaten at the day before in Palmero Soho, and enjoyed.

Tango dancers were mesmerizing a crowd with their graceful twists, turns, dips, and kicks at the Plaza Dorrego. Resting between dances, they encouraged folks to come forward and dance too. It was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon, with a vibe totally different from the craft market in Retiro, and the shaded lanes of Palmero. Every August the city hosts the Buenos Aires Tango Festival & World Cup, a two weeklong dance-off, with concerts and shows where over 400 couples from around the world compete for the top spots in different categories.

The next day a rainy morning finally cleared as we were on our way to a three hour cooking class to learn how to make those savory pastry meat-filled turnovers called empanadas, and alfajores, a melt in your mouth layered shortbread-like cookie filled with dulce de leche.

Our hosts Tomas and Lala graciously welcomed nine of us into their home; we were from France, Norway, Switzerland, and the United States. The other participants, like us, we learned after introductions all around, were snowbirds escaping a cold northern winter.

Tango music played softly in the background as Tomas divided us into three groups of 4, 2 and 3, the odd man out joining Donna and me. It was very well organized, and Tomas led us through the mixing of ingredients and made sure we added just the right amount of water so the dough was kneadable, but not sticky. Everyone cut their balls of dough and rolled them out into taco size discs, not too thin or too thick. Lala provided a meat filling. The hardest part was crimping the edges of the dough together to seal in the filling. The gal next to us was very good at it and created bakery worthy pockets. The three of us had various aesthetic results, that would improve with practice. Brushed with an egg white, trays of empanadas were put into the oven to bake. The cookie batter was also quite easy to make. We sipped some mate (a traditional herbal drink with lots of caffeine) and got to know our tablemates as we waited for the empanadas. We can see why people like mate (pronounced mah-tay) but I think for us it would be an acquired taste. The empanadas were tender and tasty, though it was obvious which ones my fingers had molded, as they oozed from some thin spots in the crust. This was the first cooking class we’ve ever taken during our travels and found the whole experience, along with the shared camaraderie, very enjoyable.

The next morning, we pulled our luggage behind us as we strolled down Calle Florida, a 10 block long pedestrian walkway in the center of Buenos Aire’s shopping district that runs from the Plaza General San Martín to Plaza de Mayo. It was a very pleasant lane centered with rows of young shade trees, and intermittent sidewalk cafes along the edges. The Galerías Pacífico, an upscale glass domed shopping complex, was our destination.

With architectural inspiration taken from the Vittorio Emmanuelle II galleries in Milan, the 1889 building was designed to be a shopping experience akin to the Bon Marche stores in Paris. But a long economic recession in Argentina during the 1890s and early 1900s nixed its realization and the gallery area was used as part of the National Museum of Fine Arts, while the Ferrocarril Buenos Aires al Pacífico acquired part of the building for offices. The company’s presence eventually led it to being called the “Edificio Pacífico,” (Pacífico Building).

The famous domed lower level over what is now the food court was constructed during renovations in the 1940s and embellished with twelve spectacular murals by the artists Lino Eneas Spilimbergo, Antonio Berni, Juan Carlos Castagnino, Manuel Colmeiro, and Demetrio Urruchúa.

A hundred years later a 1990s renovation finally covered the galleries with a glass ceiling and the “Galerías Pacífico,” became the flagship of Buenos Aires’ shopping district. We really are not into mall shopping, but this is very nice, and an architecturally and culturally interesting spot that attracts a diversity of folks. It was the perfect spot for our “walk a little then café,” break before having an ice cream bar decorated with Lionel Messi’s blue and white uniform.  The Buquebus ferry terminal was only a short walk away for our crossing back to Uruguay and our flight home.

Buenos Aires is a sprawling city with 48 different neighborhoods and three million people. It is a great destination, and we only scratched the surface of the multitude of places to visit, and things to do within this vibrant city. In hindsight, we could have stayed several more days to explore the museums and government buildings, based ourselves in the Palermo neighborhood, and used the subway to get around.

Till next time,

Craig & Donna

Montevideo: Feria, Murals & Carnaval – The Antidote for our North America “Winter Blues.”

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A clearing storm covered Uruguay’s Atlantic Coast as we landed at Carrasco International Airport on the outskirts of Montevideo. We were ten minutes into our forty-minute Uber ride into Ciudad Vieja, the old town section of Montevideo, when the masts of several catamarans poked above the tree line that obscured our view of the oceanfront. Our driver proudly boasted that the country has nearly 660km (410mi) of pristine beach-covered coastline along the Río de la Plata and the South Atlantic Ocean. But the real pride and joy of Montevideanos is La Rambla of Montevideo, a wide coastal esplanade that runs for 22km (14mi) along the city’s waterfront, “one of the longest continuous sidewalks in the world.”

Our ride into the city soon started to follow La Rambla’s serpentine route along the coast, past folks, at the end of the workday, flocking to its breezy shoreline to enjoy all sorts of activities from rollerblading to kite surfing. Several beach areas also had bandstands where musicians were drawing good size audiences. Lovers snuggled on the seawalls, amidst swimmers emerging from the ocean, games of soccer, joggers, aerobic classes, personal trainers, cyclists, sun worshippers, and walkers carrying their ubiquitous Mate carryalls. Enjoying socializing with friends on La Rambla is an important part of life in Uruguay’s capital, where the city’s 1.4 million residents, nearly 40% of the country’s population, have an open invitation to “The Outdoor Living Room of Montevideo.” Come sunset there seemed to be collective quieting as folks stopped to watch the sun sink below the horizon. We could already tell that this could be the antidote for our North America “winter blues.”

The next morning, we were up before sunrise to stroll along the oceanfront, hoping to catch the first rays of sunlight cast across the city. From our room at Hotel NH Montevideo Columbia, we could see seven freighters making their way to port, and the remnants of an old defensive tower. It was part of the quickly built ramparts that once encircled the citadel soon after the Spanish founded the city in 1726, to thwart Portuguese expansion southward along the coast from Brazil.

Street art and sculptures that were a blur yesterday as we sped by were now full of detail. In some places along the esplanade there were images of dinosaurs on relief plaques implanted into the sidewalk that suggested the region’s fauna 85 million years ago.

We reached Playa Ramirez, a large crescent-shaped beach as the sun was breaching the trees and shining upon the city’s modest skyline. A large group of cyclists preparing for the upcoming Vuelta Ciclista del Uruguay sped by. Two women stood in the water and let the gentle morning waves lap around their ankles as they chatted.

Across from the beach was Parque Jose Enrique Rodó. A large sculpture in the center of the park is dedicated to the Montevideo-born philosopher and essayist, who wrote about Latin America pursuing its own cultural identity and spiritual renewal, and the dangers of unbridled materialism.

We started our loop back towards the Ciudad Vieja down one of the park’s palm-lined paths and zig zagged our way through barrios full of colorful street murals, and older 1900’s era buildings with interesting architectural details.

Walking through Barrio Sur along Isla de Flores, bleachers were being set up at the intersections in preparation for one of the last parades of Carnaval. The street was lined with murals dedicated to the local comparsas, large groups of 50-100 candombe drum performers and dancers, who participate in the yearly festival. We spent some time determining a good vantage point for watching the parade later in the week.

The grand Plaza Independencia was a huge contrast to modest barrios we had walked through earlier that morning. In the park’s center a large equestrian statue stands atop the Masoleum of José Gervasio Artigas, a gaucho, military leader, and revolutionary who inspired Uruguayans to fight against Spanish and Portuguese rule. He is considered the father of Uruguay’s liberation movement, though he did not live long enough to see the country’s independence in 1828.

A vast array of different architectural styles can be seen on the buildings around the plaza, but the most intriguing is the chaotic styling of the 27-story tall Palacio Salvo, which eclectically blends elements of Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Gothic, and Renaissance architecture into its design. The iconic mixed-use building has shops, offices, apartments and the Museo del Tango. It was for a short period of time after its completion in 1928 the tallest building in South America.

At the opposite end of the plaza the Puerta de la Ciudadela, one of the old gateways into the colonial citadel, is all that remains of a tall stone defensive wall that was 6 meters (20ft) thick, and totally encircled the small peninsula where Spain established its first colony in Uruguay. After Uruguay gained its independence the demolition of the citadel’s ramparts started in 1829, less than 100 years after their construction, to make room for the growing port city’s expansion.

The old gateway opened to Sarandí, the main pedestrian lane that runs from one end of Ciudad Vieja to the other. At the beginning of the lane was Montevideo’s Walk of Fame, where stars of famous visitors to the city, like Nelson Mandela, the Rolling Stones, Enrique Iglesias, and Olga Delgrossi, Uruguay’s beloved singer and tango dancer, were imbedded in the pavement with sun bursts above their names.  Now mid-afternoon, the day had warmed, and the street was full of vendors under colorful umbrellas, selling all sorts of items geared for tourists.

We wrapped up our day’s wandering about at the Montevideo Metropolitan Cathedral, or as it is formally called the Catedral Metropolitana de la Inmaculada Concepción y San Felipe y Santiago.  In 1790 the construction of the cathedral was started to accommodate a growing congregation in the prosperous city, which had outgrown its first smaller brick church, which was built on the same site in 1740. Inside were some very nice pieces of religious art.

The next morning we continued exploring the old town and watched a wedding party throw rice upon a newly married couple at the Registry Office. We only noticed a sculpture of Montevideo’s version of Romeo and Juliet when a crowd in front of us was pointing up to a balcony. “Our walk a little then café,” routine was satisfied with breakfast at Federación, an artesanal panaderia and café, with tables on the sidewalk and in a small courtyard. It was on the way to several museums we planned to visit, before having a late lunch at one of the steakhouses in the Mercado del Puerto.

Montevideo has over twenty museums that span the spectrum from art and science to tango and carnaval. Around the corner from the café, in a 19th century building, was the Pre-Columbian and Indigenous Art Museum. It is a relatively small museum, but it has an interesting collection of archeological artifacts and an extensive collection of Carnaval masks from across Latin America.

Everything about the South American cowboy can be viewed at the Museo del Gaucho and Currency. It occupies a stately old bank building which in itself is worth poking your head into, but the immense scale of the building overpowers the exhibits of small objects used in the South American cowboy’s everyday life. Many of the fine silver items on display were from the estates of wealthy ranch owners.

The currency exhibit was okay, but we think you really have to admire a country that puts an armadillo on one of their coins. There was also a collection of coins recovered from the wreck of the Spanish galleon El Preciado, which was sunk in Río de la Plata by pirates in 1792, as it sailed for Spain carrying gold and silver to pay the taxes levied against the South America colonies.

Artistic street murals can be found all across Montevideo and we passed several interesting ones on the way to the Museo de las Migraciones. We really enjoyed this museum as it celebrates the country’s diverse population of its immigrants who contributed to making Uruguay the wonderful place that it is. The exhibits confirm the belief that most folks have more in common than what separates us.

It was a long walk back towards the Mercado del Puerto. The cast-iron and glass roofed structure was imported from Liverpool, England, and feels a little like a Victorian era train station; it opened for its first customers in 1868. The old port market used to be the central place to buy supplies, fruits, produce, meats, and fish, but has now been gentrified into an atmospheric food hall, where steakhouses reign supreme, and charge a hefty price for being convenient for the cruise ships passengers which disembark at the port. That being said, we enjoyed the ambience of open wood-fired parrillas, and wafting aromas rising from the various kitchens. It was a challenge to choose a restaurant, as all the dishes that waiters whisked by us looked delicious and tempting.

Later in the week we returned to the area to attend a tablado at the Museo del Carnaval, which also had a great collection of imaginative costumes from past carnavals. As the actors readied themselves for the performance, an announcer stepped forward. There were lots of Spanish words, followed by “Donna DiMeo Hammell” and more Spanish. I speculated that we had won the Uruguayan Lottery.  Or “maybe I’ve been chosen to participate, but I don’t speak Spanish!” Donna’s first thought was, wow, they pronounced my name correctly! The mystery was solved when Donna approached the offstage area, and a smiling theater employee handed her the credit card she had unknowingly dropped earlier.

Tablados are temporary neighborhood stages set up across Montevideo where colorful theatrical and musical performances are put on by groups of actors called Murgas, known for their satirical and humorous songs, who are joined by groups of Parodistas who are recognized for their entertaining parodies of well-known stories or events.

Tablados performances only happen during the carnaval season in Uruguay, which runs for forty days between mid-January and mid-March in Uruguay. The performance we attended lasted two hours and had eight different skits. If you cannot attend one of the carnaval parades in Montevideo the tablados are extremely funny and entertaining and you don’t need to understand Spanish to thoroughly enjoy them. They are also very inexpensive.

Walking back through the newer part of Montevideo the next morning we strolled along

Av. 18 de Julio. The street is named for the day in 1830 when the Uruguayan Constitution was ratified, and is the city’s busiest street with numerous stores, restaurants and bars along its length. At the intersection of Av. Carlos Quijano was the Fuente de los Candados,

the Fountain of the Padlocks. It seems every city has one of these landmarks where couples announce their love by hanging a lock on the metalwork; many of these were engraved with names, dates, or sentiments. What’s unique about this one is that it surrounds a fountain where folks also throw coins to make a wish.

Next to the fountain was a couple busking for tips as they tango danced in front of a café. This was the only time we saw tango dancing in Montevideo, even though the city shares credit with Buenos Aires as the birthplace of the dance. The scarcity of dancers might have been because we were there during carnaval season, and so many other events were happening then.  

Nearby was the Mirador Panorámico de la Intendencia de Montevideo. It’s an open-air viewing platform on the 22nd floor of the headquarters building of the Municipality of Montevideo. Montevideo does not have a very interesting skyline, but the view was expansive, and you can see the port and how La Rambla follows the twists and turns of the coast. There is a small café inside at the mirador. We didn’t find it to be a “must do,” destination, and would suggest trying to time your visit to the mirador around sunset, if possible, to make it more spectacular.

Afterwards we decided to expand our wanderings around the city, and we walked many blocks to the Mercado Agrícola de Montevideo, a historic city market that dates from 1913. We bought some fruit and empanadas for lunch. The most interesting part of our walk was around the Palacio Legislativo, a neoclassical building that is the seat of the Uruguayan parliament. The building’s iconic architecture stands in stark contrast to the large heart felt murals portraying local Montevideans, and the writer Kurt Vonnegut.

Over the weekend the Llamadas parade, one of the largest during carnaval, was taking place Friday and Saturday night in Barrio Sur. The parade celebrates the Afro-Uruguayan culture in the country with numerous comparsas, large groups of 50-100 festively dressed drummers who play traditional candombe rhythms for their dancers who perform along the street ahead of them.

Our Uber driver dropped us as close as possible to the viewing spot we had scoped out earlier in the week. But the streets were full of activity, with roads blocked for charter buses carrying various comparsas and staging areas where the dancers and drummers readied their groups.

We didn’t know advance ticket purchase was required, so we were totally surprised when the intersections were cordoned off and only tickets holders were allowed onto the sidewalks along Isla de Flores street. Fortunately, the area we had chosen had one small section that was open, and we jammed in, shoulder to shoulder, along with several hundred other folks with the same idea, to watch the parade. Folks next to us cautioned us about losing our phones to grab and run thieves, but we never felt uncomfortable in the crowd.

Carnaval in Montevideo is not as elaborate spectacle as in Rio de Janeiro where huge floats dominate the night. We didn’t last until the end of the parade, but it was a hugely fun, very authentic grassroots event that we thoroughly enjoyed. A few blocks off the parade route at Restaurante Palermo Viejo we shared our first chivito. These are huge, layered sandwiches that contain churrasco steak, ham, bacon, mozzarella cheese, lettuce, tomato, and a fried egg on top. The tasty creation was very filling, and it is often referred to as Uruguay’s national dish.

The next morning after a luscious breakfast at El Copacabana, in the old town, we took an Uber over to the Feria de Tristan Narvaja, a Sunday street market that stretches for seven long blocks through the Cordon neighborhood. It features a multitude of vendors selling everything imaginable, along with secondhand clothing, used books, fresh produce, and artist’s handcrafted creations.

Following our “walk a little then café” philosophy we took a break at El Imperio, an eclectically decorated bar, where the barista between serving inside customers ran trays of espressos out to the vendors on the street. We thought the feria was one of the more interesting ones we’ve experienced during our travels and think it’s a must-do activity when visiting Montevideo, if you like this sort of event.

Later that morning we headed to the airport and picked up a rental car we had reserved at Localiza Aquiler de Autos, a very good local agency with reasonable rates, for our 12 day road trip, which we were starting the next day. But first we had one more thing to do locally, and we drove an hour north into the countryside outside of Montevideo. Nearly forty percent of Uruguay’s population lives in Montevideo, but the city’s urban sprawl quickly transformed into gently rolling farmlands and vineyards as we drove through the Canelones region to the Cabaña La Mansedumbre, a rustic, under-the-radar destination restaurant. We eventually turned down a sandy dirt road. A small weather-worn sign hung from the cattle gate across the twin tracks that led to Fredy and Silvana’s ranch. When making our reservation, he had reminded us to close the gate securely so his goats wouldn’t escape.

We were the first guests to arrive that afternoon and were warmly welcomed into the courtyard of the couple’s rural farm stead. A tour of the open-air kitchen followed where we met Fredy’s son Juan, as he was preparing charcuterie boards under an array of sausages and cheeses hanging from the rafters. Heat emanated from a brick oven in the corner. Two large golden tortilla de papas cooled on a countertop under shelves laden with jars or homemade sauces, jams, and jellies. Baskets of fresh bread and rolls which Silvana had baked that morning tempted us with their wonderful aroma. 

Very enthusiastically Fredy explained that everything they use to prepare their dinners is sourced within a 5-mile radius of their farm. Though many items, like the goat cheeses, were made by his neighbor using the goat milk from Fredy’s herd, while the tanat wine we were offered, as we waited for the other guests to arrive, came from a friend’s vineyard at the other end of the road. Bottles of grappa that Fredy had infused with herbs lined a shelf above wine casks which flowed freely all afternoon.

Neither has trained as a chef, but they both share a passion for food and travel which has inspired them to refine their skills over the years, and now share their enthusiasm for great food at their home on the weekends. Seeing their farming community’s potential they have encouraged their purveyors to provide new and different sausages, cheeses, and produce than what was traditionally available in the past.

With everyone’s arrival we were seated at tables under their tinned roof porch. We were hoping to experience a traditional Uruguayan asado, but grilling meats on the parrilla was not part of the gourmet eight course feast that the couple had planned.

Our initial disappointment faded quickly as amazingly delicious dishes emerged from that simple country kitchen for nearly three hours that afternoon. Every dish was uniquely flavored, excellently prepared and presented. Coffee, dessert and grappa crowned the dinner. We wish we had taken notes, but photos of some of the dishes will have to suffice. 

The dinner was nicely paced, with plenty of time to talk with the other guests and enjoy the wine between courses. It was a memorable afternoon, and an excellent farm to table dining experience, along with being the best meal we had while visiting Uruguay.

For reservations Fredy and Silvana can be contacted through phone & WhatsApp +598 99 390 054.

Montevideo consistently ranks as the top city in Central and South America for quality of life. We thought it was a great destination, especially during Carnaval and it exceeded our expectations.

Till next time,

Craig & Donna

P.S. Our 12 day road trip through Uruguay started the next day.

During our stay, Donna had horrible hacking cough, that was so concerning one night we called the reception desk at NH Montevideo Columbia to ask for advice. The hotel, to our relief, had a physician on-call who made a late-night visit to our room. After an initial exam the doctor wrote a prescription for a chest x-ray in the emergency room at The British Hospital, a private hospital in downtown Montevideo. Fortunately, it was a quiet night at the hospital, and we were attended to quickly after checking in. We had a good experience there, the x-rays were negative for lung infection, and the hospital visit was totally covered by our travel insurance.

Street parking everywhere in Uruguay is free!

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