The PicuMarZ Diary

We were not aware that breakfast was included in the price at Panga guesthouse (they told us in the evening, a bit too late then...), so we prepared a small breakfast for ourselves in the room. Then we drove through Mustjala to village Karujarve, which was called Dejevo during the Soviet times. This village used to be the largest military camp in Saaremaa, and the village is now deserted and partly destroyed. It was a ghost-like feeling over the place, strange that no one has repaired or re-built the area.

Stephen was fascinated by the ruins, and walked around in most of the houses taking photos and trying to figure out what the different buildings had been used for. I, on the other hand, was a bit afraid to go inside the buildings, since it looked like they could collapse any moment. I think we spent almost 2 hours in this area, interesting and strange at the same time.

Just a few kilometres away from the village there is a large lake, called Karujarve lake. We stopped by at a camping site there, which had a nice, sandy beach and a large jetty. The water was warm and clear, and it felt wonderful to swim there, I even jumped a few times from the jetty. Miranda also came into the water with us, she was a little bit less afraid than usual, probably because the water was warmer than in the sea.

Next sights to be visited by us were Pidula Manor and Pidula watermill and fishing pond. The Manor was in quite a bad state, and it was not open for the public. However, it had a nice garden with many large trees. According to our map there should be a 13-branched tree somewhere in the garden, but we were unable to determine which one it was. At the fishing pond we watched a young boy fishing, and just before we left he managed to catch a large salmon-fish. He looked very proud .

It was still early in the afternoon, so we had time to go for a drive on the northwestern peninsula of Saaremaa, called Tagamoisa. We did not find the sights here very interesting, so we just kept driving, we only took a short break at Jaagarahu port, an old pier.

We were getting very hungry by now, so we drove to Kihelkonna, bought some bread in the grocery and ate it in the church's garden.

Since we were now close to Vilsandi nature reserve, we decided to return to our favourite spot there, the muddy beach. We had another, wonderful swim and mud-treatment there, and Stephen even brought some mud with him home!

Before returning to Panga guesthouse we had to drive to Kuressaare, since we desperately needed to give petrol to the car. We also took the opportunity to eat pizza at the main square in Kuressaare before driving to Panga.