Kuressaare is the only real town on Saaremaa, Estonia's largest island, and it wears that distinction lightly. About fifteen thousand people live here, and the place is built around an old bishop's castle, a square, grey limestone fortress with a moat, which dates from the fourteenth century and is one of the best-preserved medieval castles in the Baltic region. The castle is surrounded by a park with earth ramparts, and the pale town streets, lined with wooden and limestone houses, lead down to a small harbour on the shallow Baltic coast. The air here is clean and salty, with a hint of juniper and seaweed.
The town became a spa resort in the nineteenth century, when people came to take the mud cures, and a number of the old buildings from that period survive, including the elegant Kurhaus on the seafront. Saaremaa itself has an unusual character, as the island's people have kept a distinct dialect and traditions, and it was only opened to visitors after the Soviet era ended, having been a restricted border zone for decades. Locals will tell you with pride about the island's cheese, rye bread, smoked fish and beer.
The riding here is a pleasure of a quiet sort. The island is flat to gently undulating, with long straight roads lined by juniper, pines and meadows, and little traffic outside the town and the main road to the ferry. Along the way you pass old windmills, thatched farms and the large crater lake at Kaali, formed when a meteorite struck several thousand years ago, a rare, well-preserved impact site. The surface is generally good, with some gravel on minor roads, and distances are short. The wind can be strong, and the northern sea light is lovely, especially in the long evenings of June.
Kuressaare has all the services you need, with fuel stations, supermarkets and cafes, so fill your tank here before heading to the quieter parts of the island, where stations are fewer. The ferry from the mainland runs to Muhu, which is joined to Saaremaa by a causeway, and it can be busy in summer, so check the timetable and arrive early. Spring and early autumn are calm seasons, with fewer people and clear light. On a still evening you can sit by the castle moat and hear nothing but the swifts overhead.