Exploring The Peninsula

Kopu lighthouse
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We played a truly international game during on Friday night: Monopoly. Adrienne cleaned up!! There was a protracted war of retribution between the remaining players but even though Adrienne had retired a hour or two earlier, she still won. By the time 3am rolled around, we realised that it was probably time to give up.

A sleep-in and a decent fry up for brekkie put us in good stead to explore a bit of the Kõpu peninsula. A lightless beacon had been built there in 1531, then upgraded to a lighthouse in 1649... basically there has been a warning structure here for a really long time. The big block of concrete that can be seen now owes it's wonderful aesthetics to the Soviets in the late 80's. The lighthouse is on the highest point in western Estonia; 68m. It provides the best view over Hiiumaa, which can only really described as a sea of trees surrounded by a forest of water... or something to that effect.

...a sea of trees surrounded by a forest of water...

The sea of trees... or whatever
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The Soviets had developed some serious defences on the island during their occupation. We visited the remains of the Ristna Defence Structures but the remnants had been largely removed. There was still a forward observation tower that could be climbed and gave a good view out to the sea. Luckily there weren't any damned capitalist battleships trying to sneak past our eagle eyes.

Alice's job requires her to keep an eye on some heritage sites, so we went to a few boulders to check if the areas had been kept clean. We did find it a bit odd that there was so much importance attached to some big pieces of granite but they are a part of the culture – each boulder has a name and a legend about how it ended up in its position. It does make for an interesting quirk.

An old bunker
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We were invited with P&A to one of their friend's for a sauna but it was really late by the time they left and we were buggered. The Monopoly game had obviously been to much for us! The weekend ended quietly with Alice baking a superb cheesecake.