Kuressaare update

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I am now on Saaremaa island the largest in Estonia - in a place called Kuressaare, which is the biggest town here - but we are only talking about 11,000 people so WAY smaller than anywhere else I have been. It was quite a surprise to come somewhere so small. However I was ale to use my initiative and found a pretty reasonable hotel not mentioned in the LP (Lonely Planet) the Arabella which was only 500Eek (thats Estonian krons - about 9 to Aussie dollar - so that was pretty reasonable. The bus ride to Kuressaare is about 4 hrs (incl. 30mins or so for the ferry crossing to the island) from Tallinn and I got here around 4pm yesterday. I was a little worried about it being the weekend and no booking but it seems pretty quiet. The (very nice) woman behind the (very nice) wine bar last night told me that Friday had been quite busy - but the bad weather - it started to rain about 5pm - had kept people inside. I had ducked into a cafe and had a coffee and a pastry to make up for no lunch - and read my book for a while which I had started on the bus. as it was still raining and about 6.45 decided to more or less cross the road (in rain no point in going too far) and do dinner at the Vinoteek Prelude. A very nice creamy fish soup - then some wild boar with roast potatoes. A glass of chilean chardonnay with the soup - and then a rather too light Italian red which she had open - an obscure variety called Schioppotino - I needed something more tannic for that wild boar. Then a very nice gooseberry tart with a very nice grainy sort of textured ice cream. And a local apple wine which was quite nice instead of an Austrian sweet wine or something - drink local - it was either that or black currant wine. Love the fact that you still get all these very seasonal berries here at the end of summer - they appreciate it much more as the season is so short. How long since you have seen gooseberries for sale? 40 years I reckon.

So better go and organsie that bike

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Are you sure your name is not A.A Gill?