After Saaremaa, we had a day left to explore other cool places before heading back to Tallinn. We decided to stop in Lihula, a small city in Western Estonia, Lääne county. It has cool ruins of hill fort and the bishop’s castle which was built in 1224.

Coffee break.. always a good idea.

We then made a spontaneous decision to visit Koluvere castle. It’s the only castle in Estonia which has private owners and doesn’t have any state ownership to it. We ignored the sign “private property” and after we had already walked around I saw some people and asked them if we can look around (outside the castle, of course). They were reluctant, but said “yes”. I felt like I stepped into someone’s home without asking permission. After google’ing the castle, I found out that the people I was talking to were the owners…oops. Worth it tho!

After our spontaneous Koluvere castle visit, we headed to Rummu, an old Soviet-era prison which was closed down in the 1990s. Here’s a little something how it became into a quarry (this is Wikipedia, as this explanation is much better than I would do..): “Excavation was performed as hard labour by Murru and Rummu prisoners. The inmates excavated and processed limestone from the water-drained quarry until 1990s, when pumping of water ceased, and the quarry quickly filled with groundwater, immersing in it some of the utility buildings and machinery, thus forming a lake.”

Getting into the prison area is another story. Since it’s surrounded by large brick walls and barbed wire it wasn’t that easy to get into the territory. We had to climb the brick wall since we didn’t know the hidden spots to get in. Getting out was easier as we discovered hole in the wall. It was open for public until last summer, but then it was closed down as people often went for a swim there and jumped to the water from the old prison buildings (not the safest thing to do probably). There is a really cool video about people jumping from the buildings below.

Squad

Golden hour

After Rummu, we headed back to Tallinn and the next morning the Canadians left 😦

Until the next time!