Kuressaare Castle

Most medieval castles in this part of Europe are ruins. Kuressaare is not - the fourteenth-century bishop's castle still stands as a complete building, with its vaults, chapel, refectory and defensive towers intact, which makes it the reference point for what these places actually looked like.

What you actually see

A compact square keep of grey dolomite with a tower at two opposite corners, sitting inside a much later star-shaped bastion system of grassed earth ramparts and a broad moat. You cross the water on a bridge, come in under the gate, and the interior is genuinely medieval: cold stone, ribbed vaults, narrow stairs inside the walls, and a chapel on the upper floor.

The Saaremaa Museum fills the rooms with the island's history from prehistory through the Soviet period. The bastions outside are a park now, and walking the full circuit of the ramparts gives you the castle from every side.

When to go

• June to August - the moat and park at their best, and the castle hosts its opera days and medieval events.
• May and September - the same building with far fewer people.
• Winter - the moat freezes, the walls look their most severe, and the interior is properly cold.

Honest expectations

The interior is a museum, so the medieval rooms are interleaved with modern displays and cases. If you want undisturbed atmosphere, the defensive corridors and the tower stairs deliver it better than the main halls.

The stairs inside the walls are steep, narrow and worn, and there is no way to make the upper levels step-free.

Nearby

Kuressaare's small wooden town centre and spa hotels are on the doorstep. The Kaali crater and the Angla windmills are both under half an hour north.