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Baltics trip
Day 10 - 25th May - Kuressare, Estonia (Part 2)
We could've taken a bus to the meteorite craters but would've had to walk 2.5-3km. Gah.
Keep
Cannon
Portcullis
There was a museum within the castle. It was interesting and eclectic but had a very confusing layout. And most information was in Russian or Estonian.
Swordfish beached in 1998
Bishops of the Castle
Coat of Arms
St Mary's Coronation, by the Luebeck (Lübeck) Master, Bernt Notke
Pulpit fragments, Karla Church
Refrectory of Chapter House
Naturally enough, a part of the museum was dedicated to Soviet-bashing:
"The precentor's house at Poide: Here three Red Army soldiers died as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning in the night before 23 October 1939. These were the first Red Army victims in Estonia."
This was a month after their pact of mutual assistance.
"Early Medieval Struggle for Freedom... Uprising in 1343 was the last attempt to liquidate foreign power in Estonia in the Middle Age. The islanders destroyed the castle of the Order at Poide and completely cleaned the island of Germans."
Ethnic cleansing might have been alright in the 14th century, but it is customary, while doing a historical retrospective, to at least make excuses for it in light of historical exigencies.
Battle Painting. I doubt it's from 1222 - that's probably the date of the scene depicted.
I learnt twice as much about medieval leather from this than everything else I had known before.
Recorder, second half of 14th century
Immured knight. What's with this country and screwed up stories?!:
"LEGEND OF AN IMMURED KNIGHT
According to a legend a Russian engineer who drew up a plan of the convent building in 1785, found a walled up cellar in the eastern corner of the inner court of the castle. In the middle of the cellar stood a massive table and in a leather upholstered armchair behind the table was a man’s skeleton. After being touched the skeleton fell to bits on the floor but before that the drawing teacher of a local school had managed to make a sketch of the skeleton. It turned out that these were the remains of the knight who had been immured in the cellar alive by the order of the bish during the Reformation in the first half of the 16th century. As the Catholic bishop of Saaremaa tended to be beaten by his protestant vassals, he turned to the Roman pope with a request for help. So the latter had sent here an inquisitor of Spanish origin whose task was to solve the problem. But the vassals had decided to test his piety and strength of mind through a beautiful blonde maid. The knight fell in love with the girl, this way getting into conflict with the requirement
of celibacy in force in the Catholic Church. Quite soon the affair became public the girl’s hair was cut and she was sent to Kaarma Nunnery to do penance. The loving inquisitor decided to help the girl save out from the nunnery but a letter hidden into a loaf of bread happened to be on a bishop’s table instead of a cloister. Then it was decided that the holy man had irrevocably gone of the right path and he was immured alive in a cellar of Kuressaare Castle. Up to now this place is known as a cellar of an immured knight."
Sometime earlier I had lost YC and nw.t, so I wandered around looking for them. Oddly there was a horde of elderly Scottish tourists running around at this time too.
Keep
Jumping kids at castle battlements
Courtyard
Moat
"No broken bottles" - at field
We had a light snack at a restaurant before dinner:
"Octopussy rings with dill sauce"
"Crepes with pure Canadian Maple Syrup and Banana"
I doubted they could offer real maple syrup for E3,50.
Pancakes with bacon and smoked cheese filling
We then bought dinner for later at a supermarket.
Largest bread selection I've ever seen.
Shopping trolley-kid cart
Slimy salads: most of those here are variations on beetroot
Town Street
All in all, I wouldn't recommend the Baltics as an initial holiday destination: there's more to see in Western Europe, if you haven't been there.