Update on Estonia - final chapter

We continued on to our accommodation in Kuressaare, the prettiest of Estonia's island towns. Unfortunately our hosts Toomas and Marike had unexpectedly been called to Sweden on a family matter but Neeme (pronounced Nayma), their friend and house resident, was there to welcome us. The first night we had dinner of a magnificent fish soup prepared by Marike, accompanied by the obligatory shots of icy vodka. The next day Neeme arrived at our guest house with some bottles of local Pihtla farmhouse ale (7.6%) that he sourced from the brewer and some smoked fish. He explained that the proper way to eat the fish is with your fingers, so we proceeded to devour the fish washed down with the local ale (and later with some 80% proof local vodka that I found in the town). Needless to say we all had an early night !!!!!

Our accommodation in Kuressaare.

Our smoked fish, Pihtla ale and vodka feast. We spent time touring the old town centre, Kuressaare Castle (dating from the mid-14th century and the best preserved medieval fortress in Estonia) and visiting Maree's relatives and family friends.

Views of Saaremaa. We managed to safely return to Tallinn (much to Robert's surprise) after driving just over 1,500 kms around Estonia. We negotiated driving on the 'wrong' side of the road alright but our Mazda 6 automatic had dodgy electrics and if it refused to start we had to manually switch through all the gears in the hope that the problem would be fixed - this made for interesting times, especially our last fuel stop in Tallinn when we did not think the car would re-start.

Last views of Tallinn Old Town and our hotel coffee shop. Whilst in Kuressaare, Neeme gave us a guided tour of his hydraulic cylinder manufacturing business called Vatta Metall; it was a very impressive operation. He also showed us a woodworking business next door where two replacement doors for the Kuressaare Castle were being produced - once completed each massive door would require 10 men to move it.