North-Eastern, Southern Eesti and Tartu
After recharging our batteries in Saku, we decided to make another large road trip through Eesti. This time though, we headed east instead of west. We drove from Saku to Kiiu Torn (Tower) which has an estonian liquor named after it. We tasted them and would really recommend the coffee and herb flavors. We then drove onwards through the Palmse Manor, and the Estonian artists museum in Viinistu. We then visited the Rakvere castle, which included a torture room, and some interesting exibits where you can actually play with swords and jousting equipment. We then drove through Lüganuse and searched around the graveyard, where we believe some of Eero’s relatives are burried. (The Ahermaa side of the family…which we didn’t end up finding). We then continued on along the northern cliffs and ended up spending the night at a really nice farm B&B run by Tia Rüütopold (a Canadian-Estonian who’s been living there for nearly 15 years now).
The next day we drove through Narva-Jõesuu and along the Russian border to Narva. The Hermann castle there is quite impressive as it is right across the river from another big castle on the Russian side. We were going to go to the museum there, but we encountered a common problem in Narva area, no one speaks Estonian. or English. Just Russian. They also are having huge lines to get over the border, something like a 30 hour wait if you’re in a car, but more like 60 hours if you’ve got a transport truck. We continued on that day through Kuremäe nunnery, which is a Russian Orthodox convent. We then continued on down around Peipsi Lake (The 4th biggest in Europe), and then down through Mustavee and Alastkivi Manor, before reaching Võru for the evening. There we met one of Eero’s Grandmother’s friends and possibly distant relative, Eve Sõmer. She was an extremely nice lady who teaches english in the Võru highschool (which is coincidently the same school that Eero’s grandmother attended, just in a different location now). In Võru, we visited some more gravestones of Eero’s relatives (The Sibul side of the family) and also the farmhouse, apartment, and location of the store which that part of the family lived/worked in. The store is now a nice flower store. We also visited the home of F. Kretzwuald who wrote the Estonan Epic Kalevipoeg.
We then went onwards to Tartu, passing through Sangaste castle and Otepää. We tried to go to the Estonian Ski museum, but it was closed. Eero was sad, but still went and explored the Otepää old hill fortress ruins, which they had also set up a zip line on. In Tartu we stayed at the Herne B&B, and we went and saw a big summer concert at the Laululava, featuring lots of music I couldn’t understand because it was in Estonian. Eero seemed to enjoy it though, with the likes of Tanel Pader and the Sun, the Smilers, and Riho Sibul. We spent the next couple of days lounging around in Tartu looking at various statues of famous Estonia people and University of Tartu buildings. Tartu is one of Eastern Europe’s oldest Universities, and there are quite a lot of nice buildings. We went to the A. Le Coq brewery tour, which was rather confusing as the guide seemed to alternate speaking in every language possible, except english. We enjoyed an evening dinner at the Püssirohukelder (Gun Powder Cellar) where Eero managed to eat the majority of a pig hock. Last friday we then visited the KGB cell museum, and later went and checked out the Emajõgi (mother river) festival on the bank of the river. It was really neat since they had an old wooden sailboat with its sail up acting as a screen for historic video clips, various odd short films, and even an old silent French film. They also had a live band, the Unsakad, playing on a stage. The band provided the music for the silent film and it was quite nice. Eero also managed to run into someone he knew from Canada now living and studying in Tartu.
Saturday we drove back to Saku and on the way tried to stop at another festival that Eero was interested in seeing only to realize that it wasn’t actually in that town and was a few hours drive in the opposite direction. We also drove past Eero’s mom’s cousin’s hydroelectric dam that he owns which was neat. After driving through several bad rain storms we ended up back in Saku where Eero’s great aunt Erika cooked us a nice meal. That night we drove into Tallinn to meet up with Eero’s friend Andres Sehr and his girlfriend Liisa at the Hell Hunt bar.
Sunday we headed into Tallinn to stay for a few days to explore the city. More on that to come…
