Island holiday

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8 June:
THE TIME HAS COME for my first break from the cultural journey I am undertaking these six weeks. I'm heading for the island of Saaremaa, a weekend and summer vacation spot for residents of Tallinn. I pack up my belongings, pull the hidden shoulder straps out of the convertible 22-pound carry-on case, attach the smaller backpack and, voila (or whatever the local word is), I'm off on the trolley bus heading for the central bus depot. Only I make a mistake. I end up at the Balti jaam (central train station). A kindly cobbler shop owner tells me to take tram number 2 clear around town to the Autobuusijaam. Well, with all these jaams no wonder a foreigner gets into the sticky.

The coach trip to Kuuresaare, the capital of Saaremaa (pop. 16,500), takes four hours, including a half-hour ferry hop. Cost: about $20. With the exception of Tallinn, which is situated on a limestone outcropping, much of the country is flat. This doesn't make for an exciting trip, but I just sit and look out at the grassland, barley fields and forests of birch, ash and pine trees. I daydream and reminisce, recalling (too little) the stories my mother told me at her knees, of this far-away land.

I'll be staying three days at Helene's B&B which I found online. One and a half kilometres, the owner says on the phone. It feels more like three, what with my heavy pack in the hot sun, and doing an unintentional detour along the wrong beach road. But the place sure is worth it. Queen-size bed in a spacious room and the guests' tiled dining and living area all to myself, at least for tonight. The place looks new with its own high-end kitchen, and my bathroom even has heated tile floors! Aah... Sirje has named the place after her daughter with whom she operates a Kosmeetik studio out of the house. "Yes, we can do facials for men," she assures me. I remain non-committal.

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Photos

Wheat fields along the highway
on the island of Saaremaa near Kuressaare.

Duck crossing
Estonian seem to take their feathered friends seriously. Actually this sign marks a bog that is a bird sanctuary, but I see more white swans than ducks.

Reminds me of Don Quixote
Actually, this isn't Spanish or Estonian but a Dutch-style windmill from the late 1890s near downtown Kuressaare. It now houses a tavern.