Haapsalu

On Thursday we took an hour and 45 minute bus ride to a small town called Haapsalu.  The town was made famous by the restorative mud baths that the Russian czars loved.  The town itself is pretty small - I think 12,000 people.  After we hiked with our luggage to our hotel we set out to find some food.  We found a great cafe - we struggled with the menu which was in Estonia for 15 minutes with no luck before a waitress came with the English menus (oops!).  

This is the old train station that was built specifically for the czars so they wouldn't have to stand in the open air to catch the train - the covered platform was huge! 

After lunch we toured The Episcopal Castle and Church in town.  There is a great tale about a lady being walled up in the church walls for some offense and she can be seen on the first Saturday after the first full moon of August- we missed her by mere days! 

View from the top of a castle tower

The town was pretty small so there was not a lot to see but it had a great casual beach atmosphere so we wandered the town then headed to the hotel to relax on the grassy "beach" in front of our hotel. We wandered back into town for dinner and picked up some "long drinks" on our way home which are basically mixed drinks in a can.  We noticed lots of people drinking them so we thought we would give it a try.  There were many varieties- our favorite was the rose wine and tonic (sounds gross but it was good I swear!)

View from our hotel

One of the many cute "lace" houses in Haapsalu

Enjoying our long drinks!