The bus from Tartu to Valjandi was a little over an hour, and couldn’t purchase tickets at the times I’d planned out in my head for a day trip here. So with taking what I could book, I arrived at the ungodly hour of 9:30am, while the majority of Estonia still slept. Thankfully there was a Rimi shopping centre was across the road from the bus terminal and I immediately made my way there to fuel up on an espresso coffee.
Shopping centres in Estonia, and likely the rest of the Baltics, are dominated by a brand called Rimi. I get the impression they’re Estonia’s equivalent to Westfields, and they proudly have their opening hours on the signage. More importantly, these centres are the only places open at 9am – even some, prepare yourselves, open at 8am!
The town of Viljandi is a stunningly picturesque town situated by a lake of the same name. Founded in 1224 by the German Teutonic Knights, who came across some of the rare hills in Estonia and knew it was their heavenly dictated duty to build something on them. Off they went and built a castle on top, and soon enough the town sprung up around the castle.
Unfortunately the castle fell into disrepair after the Polish – Swedish Wars of the 17th century. Only a few walls remain, and it appears the locals have repurposed the main area as a theatre, with wooden benches for seating and a stage. I would have loved to been here for a concert or stage play, the setting really is awesome.
The small museum of Valjandi is worth a look, covering the stone age period through to WWII and the 60s. There’s some really great antiques here, old home radios the size of an old CRT TVs, giant metal necklaces and badges the mayor and other officials used to wear, and a collection of Estonian officer metals from WWII including several Iron Crosses. Yes, Estonia would sided with Nazi Germany, but not because they were cool with Aryan supremacy, but because they hated the Russians.
The weather started a gear shift and it actually got warm. Temperature finally broke 20 degree’s, and part of me started to missed the cold. It’s nice to explorer for a day and not have any sweat on you. I was still getting used to the extremely long days, 6am dawn, 9pm dusk. I get why people don’t get up early in the morning, with daylight being so plentiful by so many hours compared to back home. And I have to say, it’s really nice to be able to go into a restaurant at 4pm and get lunch.
Viljandi was a little lazier than the previous towns I’d visited. Nothing open before midday here, which wasn’t so bad with my early arrival as the castle remains were public, and the town is so nice to just stroll around. And with midday chiming I hammered down the door of the closest pub, devoured a delicious pork schnitzel (it was really a milanese not a schnitzel, which I actually prefer), I was soon on the 2pm bus back to Tartu and my thoughts turned to crossing the border into Latvia, and onto their capital of Riga.
I didn’t have to worry about border crossing or visa’s either. Turns out Australian’s can travel visa free across a broad array of European countries know as the Schengen Area. So I guess we’re honorary EU citizens or something. We’re all friends after all, until someone kills a Duke.