Torrential rain came down on us today; really torrential. I’ve seldom seen such heavy rain last so long. Saaremaa was besieged by this deluge for several hours.
We drove south today, to the Sõrve peninsula.
I’ve seen Estonia referred to as E-stonia, which is very appropriate, given how wired this country is. Or perhaps I should say how wireless Estonia is, because it seems that most of the country is covered in a grid of mostly gratis 802.11 networks. Even on the southernmost tip of the Sõrve peninsula this afternoon, I had free wi-fi access from the one small restaurant near the lighthouse.
As we ordered our lunch, the rain stopped and, urged by Sarah, I ventured outside and over to the lighthouse to take some photos of the ominous and forbidding setting. I hope I got some good ones, because this was the only opportunity today to take any landscape photos. Soon after we finished lunch, the rain started again in earnest.
Estonia’s extensive wi-fi coverage, by the way, is thanks to the work of Veljo Haamer and his WIFI.ee project. Orange and black signs abound across Estonia and anywhere you see one, wi-fi access is available. Even town squares and parks display these signs, so that you can sit on a bench and check your e-mail as you relax for a moment or make your way across town from A to B. It’s a commendable initiative and I wish more countries had something like this.
We headed back to Kuressaare along an unpaved coastal road that ran right along the water’s edge. The views are probably great on a good day, but I could see only about 100 metres in front of the car, if that.
We leave Saaremaa tomorrow on the eleven o’clock ferry. All of the advance tickets have now been sold, but since we booked yesterday evening, we’re assured of being aboard. All I have to do is get us to the port on time.
From Virtsu on the mainland, it’ll be about another two hours of driving to the Estonian capital of Tallinn, where we’ll spend four nights. We were originally planning only three, but the hotel we picked had a four-for-the-price-of-three deal that was too good to pass up.
The weather forecast for Tallinn isn’t particularly good, but being a city, there will be things we can do indoors. And, even if it rains tomorrow, we’ll be there long enough that we stand a reasonable chance of some dry spells.
Dinner was at the very sleek Chameleon, a restaurant that looks as if it would be too cool to have a children’s play room inside, but surprised these patrons by doing just that. Eloïse and Lucas spent most of the meal away from us in a different room without so much as a murmur!
I should also put in a good word for the Classic, a cosy little café (or kohvik, as they’re called here) on Lossi. They have good cakes, coffee and wild boar shashlik (shashlik or Шашлык, by the way, is a legacy from the Soviet days and can be found on menus throughout the Baltics).