Paradise Island

Jun 04, 2008
By Marge Tubalkain-Trell

TALLINN - There is definitely no place like Saaremaa in Estonia. Ask anyone who lives there or has been on the island and they will say it is something special.
Sure Saaremaa is naturally beautiful  with places of wilderness. If I had to mention anything specific I’d be stuck. There are small trees and rocks in the grass, there is the  sea and the birds chirping. There are numerous nature reserves. This could be a description of any rural area in the world.
The island is more than just a collection of trees and wildlife. It has something else and I had real difficulty pinning down what that something is.

Whatever it is the  people who live there look happy.  It’s Estonia’s Utopia.
Saaremaa’s villages are small and well taken care of, and people mainly live in spacious houses quite far from each other. There are hundreds of stone fences, just like in olden times.
I’ve never heard anyone who permanently lives in Saaremaa talk about politics. But I haven’t met everyone on this island.

The biggest city in Saaremaa is Kuressaare, which is small, to be honest. It is relaxing, but I wouldn’t be able to figure out what I’d do if I had to spend a week there without books. I think I’d visit every museum on the island and then spend the rest of the time eating and sleeping on the beach. But that’s the point of lazy vacation.

I’d certainly recommend going to Kuressaare Linnus, which was a fortress a long time ago. At the moment it has the Saaremaa museum inside. For a visitor that means some paintings, a taste of history, a visit to the roof and all of it is spiced with a feeling of the unexpected.
Since everything is in one place you never know what’s coming next. I’ve gotten lost in the fortress more than once. I heard that somewhere in that museum is a skeleton, but after getting lost yet again I gave up finding it. I suspect that there’s more that just one skeleton.

All in all, Saaremaa is great but might get boring if you like activities to have adrenaline – a weekend in Saaremaa, I think, would be full of slowly sailing in the sunshine. But if you are interested in sincere people, beautiful nature and being lazy, then you can pack your things and take off to Saaremaa.



Avies  airlines flies to Saaremaa twice daily http://www.tallinn-airport.ee
 http://www.bussireisid.ee/  - for buses and ferries




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