Vormsi

Vormsi was a Swedish-speaking island for some seven hundred years. In 1944 almost the entire population left for Sweden ahead of the Soviet advance, and the island went from around three thousand people to a few dozen. It is still very lightly populated, and the emptiness is the first thing you notice.

What you actually see

• The ground - flat country with thin soil over limestone: alvar meadow, juniper, low pine and birch.
• The shoreline - reeds and stones, on an island small and level enough to cycle end to end in a day.
• The ring crosses - the churchyard at Hullo full of round Swedish stone wheels on a shaft, in what is usually described as the largest concentration of the form anywhere.
• Rumpo - a long spit of juniper heath, the island's other landmark.

When to go

June to August has the full ferry timetable, meadows in flower and water warm enough to swim off the stones. September is the island at its quietest and best. In winter the ferries are reduced or interrupted by ice and almost nothing is open.

Honest expectations

There is very little infrastructure - a handful of guesthouses, one or two places to eat, and no reliable shop hours. Bring what you need.

Nothing here is dramatic. Vormsi is flat, quiet and slow, and if that does not appeal, Hiiumaa and Saaremaa offer more to do.

Nearby

Haapsalu and its castle are on the mainland side of the crossing. Hiiumaa leaves from the same port at Rohuküla.