Saaremaa is Estonia's largest island and one of those places where time seems to have stopped. A short ferry ride from the mainland, it offers a serene landscape of juniper woods, fields, windmills, lonely lighthouses and small medieval stone churches, with an island identity so strong that Estonians themselves feel it is 'another country' within their country. This is rural, quiet and authentic Estonia, ideal for switching off and exploring at a slow pace.
The island combines nature and heritage in a unique way: the spectacular Kaali meteorite crater, formed by an impact thousands of years ago; the imposing episcopal castle of Kuressaare, the best preserved in the Baltics; the Angla windmills; Panga cliff; the wild Sõrve peninsula with its lighthouse and wartime memories; and the spas of its capital, heirs to the 19th-century mud-bath tradition. All of it dotted with stone villages, thatched-roof houses and island cuisine of black bread, fish and craft beer.
This guide covers Saaremaa with a practical eye: how to get there by ferry from Virtsu or by bus from Tallinn, how to get around the island, what to see (Kaali, Kuressaare, Angla, Panga, Sõrve, the medieval churches), where to stay and eat, and when to go. A perfect destination for anyone after Baltic islands, gentle nature, medieval history and that slow rhythm so typical of Saaremaa.
Saaremaa —the former Ösel of the Germans and Swedes— was the stronghold of the Oeselians, fearsome Estonian Vikings who ruled the Baltic with their ships and fiercely resisted the crusaders. Only in 1227, after the fall of the Muhu and Valjala strongholds, was the island subdued and Christianised, coming under the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek, which built Kuressaare castle. In 1343 the islanders rose in the bloody St. George's Night Uprising. The island later passed through Danish, Swedish and Russian hands, lived through the drama of both world wars —with the brutal fighting of 1944 on the Sõrve peninsula— and decades of Soviet isolation, when it 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.
Long before the crusaders arrived, Saaremaa (the Ösel of medieval chronicles) was home to the Oeselians (saarlased). This Estonian people dominated the eastern Baltic Sea during the late Iron Age and the Viking era. They were nothing like the picture of isolated farmers. The Oeselians were skilled sailors and warriors. They built fast ships and traded all across the Baltic. They also raided ships and coasts so boldly that they were feared as pirates as far away as Scandinavia and the Slavic lands.
Norse sagas and Russian chronicles mention their fleets and their attacks. The Oeselians raided the coasts of Sweden, Denmark and the lands that are now Latvia and Russia. More than once it was the Swedes and Danes who suffered their raids, not the other way round. On the island they built round strongholds of earth and stone, such as those at Valjala and Kaarma, and Mona on neighbouring Muhu. These forts were places of refuge and centres of power for an organised pagan society that guarded its independence fiercely.
The Oeselians had a seafaring, warrior culture with its own religion and sacred places, such as the Kaali crater and the Panga cliff, and a strong sense of identity. This made Saaremaa one of the last strongholds of Baltic paganism. It was also a tough nut to crack for the Christian powers that set out in the early 13th century to conquer and convert the peoples of the eastern Baltic.
In the early 13th century, the Livonian Crusade led the Church and the German and Danish military orders to subdue the pagan peoples of the eastern Baltic by force. Mainland Estonia fell bit by bit. Saaremaa held out longer than anywhere else, protected by the sea and defended by the battle-hardened Oeselians.
The decisive blow came in the winter of 1227. Once the sea had frozen, a huge crusader army set out from the mouth of the Pärnu River and marched across the ice towards the islands. The Livonian Chronicle of Henry puts it at some 20,000 men. First to fall was the stronghold of Mona on Muhu, after several days of siege and a terrible massacre. Then the great stronghold of Valjala on Saaremaa itself surrendered. The Oeselians formally accepted Christianity, and the island became part of the Christian world of medieval Livonia (Terra Mariana), within the Holy Roman Empire.
Saaremaa was then divided between the Livonian Brothers of the Sword (later absorbed into the Teutonic Order) and the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek. Founded in 1228, the bishopric was a church-ruled principality covering today's Saare, Hiiu and Lääne counties and part of Pärnu. The new rulers imposed their religion and social order and filled the island with stone churches. Valjala's church is the oldest in Estonia still in use. In the 14th century they began building Kuressaare Castle as the bishop's seat on the island.
Conquest did not crush the islanders' independent spirit. In 1343 the St. George's Night Uprising (Jüriöö ülestõus) broke out across northern Estonia and the islands. Estonians rose up against the German and Danish lords who had conquered them and against the Christian religion forced on them.
On Saaremaa the uprising was especially violent. On 24 July 1343 the Oeselians killed every German on the island and drowned the clergy. They then besieged the Order's castle at Pöide, which surrendered after eight days and was razed. For a while the island was back in the hands of its own people. But the response came the same way the conquest had. In February 1344, Master Burchard von Dreileben led his army across the frozen sea, took the Oeselian strongholds and hanged Vesse, the rebel leader. In the winter of 1345 the Christian army returned to punish the island, looting and burning for days. In the end the Oeselians sued for peace, handed over hostages and agreed to tear down their strongholds.
The uprising failed, but Estonians still remember it as one of their great acts of resistance against foreign rule, and Saaremaa as one of its bloodiest battlegrounds. In 1346, after these events, the King of Denmark sold his lands in northern Estonia to the Teutonic Order.
With the Reformation and the Livonian War in the 16th century, the old world of the bishopric fell apart. In 1559 the last Bishop of Ösel-Wiek sold his island lands to Denmark, which took over Saaremaa and Kuressaare Castle. The island became a pawn in the struggle between the great Baltic powers and changed hands again and again over the following centuries.
The Peace of Brömsebro (1645) ended the war between Sweden and Denmark-Norway, and Saaremaa passed to Sweden. The Swedish period left its mark on local government, the Lutheran church and rural life. Then the Great Northern War (1700-1721) changed everything again. Russia defeated Sweden, and under the Peace of Nystad (1721) Saaremaa and the rest of Estonia became part of the Russian Empire. The island stayed in the empire, under the name Ösel, for more than two centuries. In practice it was run by a land-owning Baltic German nobility.
Under Russian rule, Kuressaare (Arensburg in German) grew into a small town. From the early 19th century it was also a spa resort whose mud baths drew the empire's aristocracy. The Estonian peasants, however, remained serfs until the reforms of the 19th century. They lived off grain, fishing and livestock in a landscape of windmills, stone churches and thatched-roof villages, and much of that landscape survives today.
The 20th century was especially hard on Saaremaa. After centuries of Russian and Baltic German rule, the island became part of the independent Estonia founded in 1918. That independence did not last long. The Soviet Union occupied Estonia in 1940, Nazi Germany invaded in 1941, and the Red Army took it back in 1944.
The Soviet recapture of Saaremaa in the autumn of 1944, known as the Moonsund operation, was brutal. The retreating Germans tried to hold out on the narrow, easily defended Sõrve peninsula in the south-west of the island, and fierce fighting went on there for weeks. The night battle of Tehumardi, near Salme on 8 October 1944, was one of the bloodiest of the whole war in Estonia, with hand-to-hand fighting in the dark. The Germans finally left Sõrve, and with it the whole island, on 23-24 November 1944. Today memorials, war cemeteries and the remains of fortifications line the peninsula as reminders of that tragedy.
The post-war years brought another hardship. Saaremaa was a strategic border area of the Soviet Baltic, so it was a closed military zone for almost the entire Soviet occupation. Visitors needed a special permit, and many mainland Estonians could not travel there freely. Oddly enough, this isolation helped protect the island's nature and rural heritage, because it was left out of industrialisation.
When Estonia regained its independence in 1991, Saaremaa stopped being a closed military zone and opened up to the world. The isolation of the Soviet years left an unexpected legacy. The island's nature and traditional villages are remarkably well preserved, with no big industry or large-scale development, and Saaremaa has become one of the best-loved holiday spots in modern Estonia.
Today Saaremaa lives from tourism, farming, fishing and a thriving craft food and drink scene: beer, cider, black bread and dairy. Across the country, the 'Saaremaa brand' has come to stand for quality and authenticity. Kuressaare has revived its spa tradition with modern spa hotels. Every summer the island draws Estonians, Finns and other travellers looking for nature, peace and quiet, and heritage: the castle, the Kaali crater, the Angla windmills, the lighthouses and the medieval churches.
The island has a strong identity of its own, with its dialect, its humour, its traditions and its famously unhurried pace. The saarlased still proudly feel a little 'apart' from the rest of Estonia, as distant heirs of the Oeselians who once ruled the Baltic. Travelling around Saaremaa means seeing a calm, deeply rooted island side of Estonia. Its history of Vikings, crusaders, bishops, empires and wars is still there in every windmill, every lighthouse and every stone wall.
