Kuressaare is the capital of Saaremaa and one of the most charming small towns in Estonia: calm, well kept and dominated by one of the best-preserved medieval castles in the Baltics. Located on the island's south coast, it is both the gateway for exploring Saaremaa and a destination with a personality of its own, with its episcopal fortress, its historic centre of low houses and its long spa tradition of mud baths.
The heart of the town is its episcopal castle, an imposing square limestone fortress surrounded by a moat and bastions, which houses the Saaremaa Museum and offers the island's loveliest walk through its surrounding park. Around it, Kuressaare unfolds a baroque square with its town hall, churches, wooden houses, a lively seafront with a marina and a remarkable range of spa hotels, heirs to the baths that drew the Russian aristocracy in the 19th century.
This guide covers Kuressaare from a practical angle: how to get there by ferry or bus from the mainland, what to see (the castle and its museum, the square and town hall, the historic mud baths, the seafront, the churches, the house museums), where to sleep and eat, and how to use it as a base for all of Saaremaa. An ideal destination for anyone looking for medieval history, spas, a relaxed island atmosphere and a town on a human scale.
Kuressaare grew up around its castle, built from the 14th century onwards by the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek as its episcopal seat on the island of Saaremaa. Known in German as Arensburg, it received town rights in 1563 and passed from Danish to Swedish hands and, from 1721, to Russian rule, always centred on its fortress. From 1825-1840 it developed as a spa resort thanks to its mud baths, which attracted the aristocracy of the Russian Empire. It lived through the occupations and wars of the 20th century — including the execution of civilians in the castle courtyard in 1941 — and the decades of Soviet isolation, when Saaremaa was a closed military zone. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The western archipelago, frozen in time: the large island of Saaremaa with its crater and castle, forested Hiiumaa with its lighthouses, and little Muhu.
Read the history of The western islands →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Kuressaare is, above all, a castle town. Its story begins with the fortress that gives its name and meaning to everything else. After the crusader conquest of Saaremaa in 1227 and the creation of the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek in 1228, the island came under the rule of a prince-bishop, and over time the bishops needed a strong seat in their island territory. So, from the second half of the 14th century (the first written mention of the castle dates from the 1380s), the Teutonic Order built an imposing stone fortress on the island's south coast for the bishops of Saare-Lääne: Arensburg Castle, today Kuressaare Castle.
The castle was built as a square convent-castle, with towers, a chapel, a refectory and rooms arranged around a courtyard, following the model of the military orders of the Baltic. Its solidity and its defensive and administrative role made it the centre of episcopal power on Saaremaa. It remained one of the most important castles of the bishopric until the bishopric was dissolved during the Livonian War.
Under the protection of the fortress, a small settlement of craftsmen, merchants and the bishop's servants slowly grew, and in time it would become the town of Kuressaare. The bond between castle and town shaped its whole development: for centuries, the life, economy and fortunes of Kuressaare were tied to whoever controlled the old episcopal fortress at the time.
With the Reformation and the Livonian War (1558-1583), the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek collapsed. In 1559, the last bishop sold his island lands to Denmark, which took control of the castle and the island. It was during this Danish period that the settlement at the foot of the fortress made the leap to town status: in 1563 Kuressaare, known to the Baltic Germans as Arensburg, was granted town rights, with its own municipal government, market square and trade.
Like the rest of Saaremaa, the town then became a pawn in the wars between the Baltic powers. After the Peace of Brömsebro (1645), which ended the war between Sweden and Denmark, Kuressaare passed into Swedish hands. The Swedish period strengthened the administration, the Lutheran church and town life. The castle's fortifications were expanded and modernised, and the castle was surrounded by the ring of star-shaped earthen bastions and the moat that give it its distinctive look today, both designed to withstand modern artillery.
The elegant baroque town hall (Raekoda) on the square, with its stone lions, and the old weigh house (Vaekoda) date from this 17th-century heyday of trade, when Kuressaare took on its lasting character as a small, orderly Baltic town built around its castle, its square and its harbour.
The Great Northern War (1700-1721) changed the island's ruler once again: Sweden was defeated by Russia and, under the Treaty of Nystad (1721), Saaremaa and Kuressaare became part of the Russian Empire. The town, capital of the island of Ösel, would stay within the empire for two centuries. The castle lost its military role. In 1836, after the fortress of Bomarsund was built on the Åland Islands, the Russian garrison left Kuressaare, and the old fortress was left behind as a monument to the past.
But just then the town found a new calling that would make it famous: the spa. Around 1825-1840, people began using the area's healing sea mud, which was believed to help with rheumatism and other ailments. Kuressaare became a fashionable spa resort where the aristocracy and middle classes of the Russian Empire came to 'take the mud cure'. Bathhouses, summer villas and the elegant Kuursaal, a large wooden pavilion in the castle park, were built. The castle town also became a spa town, with the refined air of a Baltic resort that it still keeps.
That double identity of medieval fortress and spa resort still defines Kuressaare today. On one side stands the castle, austere and massive. On the other is the wellness culture of mud baths and spa hotels, direct heirs of that 19th-century tradition.
The 20th century brought Kuressaare, like all of Estonia, a storm of wars and occupations. After centuries of Russian rule, the town became part of the independent Estonia proclaimed in 1918. But that independence was broken in 1940 by the Soviet occupation, followed by the German invasion in 1941 and the Soviet reconquest in 1944.
Kuressaare Castle, the town's symbol, also witnessed the violence of those years. In 1941, during the first Soviet occupation, the occupying forces executed about 90 civilians in the castle courtyard. It is one of the darkest episodes in the town's history and is remembered today with a memorial. The Soviet reconquest of Saaremaa in autumn 1944 was brutal, with fierce fighting on the island, especially on the Sõrve peninsula further west.
After the war, with Estonia once again under the Soviet Union, Kuressaare and the whole of Saaremaa became a closed military border zone. For decades you needed a special permit to visit the island. The town, renamed Kingissepa for a time after an Estonian communist leader born there, lived with the isolation and control typical of the USSR's western frontier. That isolation, however, preserved its heritage and its old-world atmosphere.
When Estonia regained its independence in 1991, Kuressaare took back its historic name and opened up to the world again. The town has strongly revived its spa tradition. Today it is one of the country's leading spa destinations, with modern spa hotels that carry on the old sea-mud tradition. The castle is beautifully preserved and houses the Saaremaa Museum. It has become the island's main tourist landmark, surrounded by its park, its moat and its bastions.
Today Kuressaare is a small, easy-going island capital of about 13,000 people. It combines medieval heritage, its spa legacy and a quiet but lively cultural life. There are summer festivals, concerts in the castle and the Kuursaal, and island food with a growing reputation, built on local produce: fish, lamb, black bread and Saaremaa craft beer.
For travellers, the town is both a destination and a base. You can spend a day exploring its castle, its baroque square, its old town and its seafront promenade, then use it as a starting point to discover the rest of Saaremaa. In Kuressaare, the island's long history of bishops, Danes, Swedes, Russians, wars and occupations comes together in one place: the old castle reflected calmly in the water of its moat.
