When the sun is setting, between dusk and darkness, there is a moment when the light turns blue. And the world stops for a heartbeat.
The drive home from a holiday, especially with forecasted rain, is rarely fun.
But when it is, it is a lot of fun.
A morning walk (with a breakfast that, according to Kiara, is worth moving to Haapsalu for), a submerged limestone quarry, an abandoned prison, and a real submarine – a few worthwhile stops. And Stuart drove faster than the wind, as the rainclouds never quite reached us.
And at the end is home.
For good and bad.
On the drive to Haapsalu, we drove past a gorgeous ruin – I forced Stuart to turn around (in traffic) and go back. If there are ghosts, they would definitely live here! But we didn’t meet any. And we looked.
The girls, on the other hand, found their sense of whimsy in a museum/craft and playhouse based on illustrations by Ilon Wikland. I, especially, loved all the joyful images from Astrid Lindgren’s books. They took me straight back to my childhood. With rain pouring down, there was no-one else.
The magic uninterrupted.
Whenever you ask the girls what they liked the best, their standard answer is “everything”. Same today. After some considerable pressure, they concluded their favorite was climbing the lighthouse. And the weirdest playground they had ever visited.
Hiiumaa has great lighthouses. We only visited three – all seven would have felt like overkill. Climbing the Köpu one, with its incredibly steep stairs and windy platform, was, indeed, more adventurous than it sounds.
Stuart’s favourite was the series of abandoned WW2 and Cold War coastal bunkers and military posts in the middle of the forest. The underground bunkers and remaining structures, including a watchtower, were free to explore. One needed a flashlight, good shoes and a real spirit of adventure. They were creepy! And not just for the girls…
And the playground… The random collection of wooden structures, all built by one (sligtly obsessed) man, was quirky and the scale was impressive. Clearly it had been amazing – at some point. However, now they teetered between unkempt-but-charming and unkempt-and-not-safe. The girls had a blast, though, exploring every structure we allowed them into.
My favourite part was all the photos. And the coolest bus stop ever.
We got an early start today due to a serious underestimation of how early one must book the ferry to Hiiumaa. Luckily, someone had come up with the idea of a few non-prebookable tickets.
But that gave us plenty of time to meander around the southern part of Hiiumaa. A short hike towards the southernmost tip, an old (sill functioning) wool factory, and a playground or two…
We decided to have a quiet evening and braai (BBQ) at the cottage – and luckily we did. The girls loved the place! The cottage looked like a pink Moomin house, with round walls, the main bedroom in a tower, massive cubby beds for the girls and an amazing floating sauna in the little pond. It even had a tiny playground.
The fact that it was totally impractical bothered only Stuart, who was cooking.
The real post for this day (day 181) was about the fountains. However, I just had to include a “bonus post” for the rest of the day, due to the pure momentousness of it.
The girls met – and even petted – capybaras.
All little girls go through phases. Our girls, especially Kiara, are going through a major capybara phase. Her school bag, pencil case, favourite shirt, eraser… all feature capybaras.
As luck would have it, they are one of Saaremaa Zoo’s main attractions.
Kuressaare, the attractive capital of Saaremaa, was cool. But only “next level” cool.
Whatever that means.
We told the kids they can get a little wet.
They got soaked to the bone.
Best thing ever.
Lotte is not a character I was familiar with. So we approached Lottemaa with some trepidation, especially as we knew everything would be in Estonian.
But children have an amazing ability to throw themselves into the parts of the story they understand – and just ignore the rest. The park had sufficient things to do, even beyond the story itself, especially as (totally out of character) I actually looked at the website beforehand and knew about the hidden adventure trail…
And everyone told us about the Finn in the village, the blue fox called Katri Helena.
The “quick stop” to cool ourselves off in Pärnu beach took a lot longer than expected. Mostly because even the girls had to walk about 100m in to the sea before the water reached their belly buttons. The shallow water felt above 30°C, though, so I didn’t mind a bit of splashing.
Washing rugs on the summer cottage pier was fun as a child. Mum would throw buckets of water on my feet as I scrubbed as hard as I could. I still love the smell of Mäntysuopa (pine soap).
As we cleaned the wendy house today, the girls tried the traditional method of cleaning a rug.
Their comment was a dry, “Clearly kids in the old days had a different way of having fun”. Apparently, it was hard work.
The best purchase of the summer – if you ask the girls – has been the massive, almost 5m-long swimming mattress Ukki ordered.
It easily holds both girls standing up, so, wearing a life jackets, Alanna and Kiara have been allowed to push it almost to the middle of the lake by themselves. This is, of course, infinitely cooler than doing it with an adult. Ukki even towed the girls and the mattress all the way to the other side of the strait.
In the deep, the mattress becomes a platform for jumping, diving, kicking, pushing and generally messing around in the water. The best game, naturally, is trying to stay standing when the waves from a passing boat rock the mattress.
Great fun and a great way to build even more confidence in the water.
Now we just need to figure out where an earth to store a thick, 5m mattress for the winter.
Alanna and Kiara both love stories about how people used to live in the old days. The concept of “the old days” is still quite fluid – anything from the 12th century to the year before they were born. Anything earlier than that is simply ‘a very, very long time ago’.
We have never explicitly tried to teach them history, although we do enjoy a good museum. But if they grow up understanding that ‘right’ ideas and ‘proper’ behavior change over time, maybe they will be less likely to dismiss new ideas and different ways of doing things.
But mostly they just find old toilets funny.
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All images from Urajärvi Manor and its beautiful gardens.
Blue Moment 