I suspect I'm lucky I survived

After the stress of the past few months, a quiet weekend away sounded absolutely perfect. Haapsalu is an enchanting seaside resort on the western coast of Estonia and hosts a number of events every year, including the Haapsalu Tšaikovski festival. Tchaikovsky is not from Haapsalu, which one might assume from the annual festival in his name, but he did go there on holiday one year and that is enough for the town to claim him as one of their own. It is in Läänemaa which literally means “Western Land” and easy access for us, just 90 minutes west of Tallinn by car.

The first mention of Haapsalu is 1297 and Bishop Hermann I granted it town rights the same year. Haapsalu was the center of the “Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek” for the next 300 years, a Roman Catholic diocese in the Holy Roman Empire which consisted of Läänemaa (Wiek), Saaremaa (Ösel) and Hiiumaa.

I only know this because many of the concerts for the festival take place in the ruins of a medieval castle and I was curious as to the history. OK, truthfully, what happened was that the word in Estonian is piiskop, which sounded like piss-head to me and I got entirely the wrong idea from the start. My school-girl linguistics was woefully lacking as the word is embarrassingly similar to English: the ruins are of the Haapsalu Episcopal (Episcopal) Castle and not at all aimed at drunken louts.

To be fair, it is a beautiful ruined castle, complete with ghost, and surrounded by half a dozen restaurants, three of which are excellent: something that one really can’t be relied on when travelling around Estonia.

We were booked into a hotel and spa that we knew well which is slightly out of town, on the edge of the Paralepa forest. The hotel offers indoor and outdoor swimming and easy access to a small beach. I treated myself to a new bathing suit for the occasion. In a reluctant acceptance of the fact that I’m getting older, I bought a two piece suit modestly designed to flatter my 50-something curvy figure, slightly looser around the stomach and covering my generous bottom down to mid-thigh in a sporty style. Fearful that it might be considered matronly, I chose the suit in hot pink with bright turquoise flowers.

The pools are open in the mornings from 8am to 10am and then closed until the afternoon, so the first night at the hotel, I put out my classy new bathing suit in case I woke up early.

The room had thick velvet curtains against the white light of Estonian summer nights, where dusk runs straight into dawn. They looked well-made until one noticed how precariously they were perched on a thin plastic curtain rail which was clearly buckling under the weight, with the left rail inexpertly super-glued together. There were no screens but as I looked out the window, a family of spiders waved back at me. A mosaic of spider webs covered the window, ready to catch any insects fool enough to be tempted by the lights on within the room. Reassured that they would keep us safe, I opened the window, hoping that the night air might cool the room.

I did wake up early, or rather, I never fell properly asleep. It was hot in the room with heavy curtains able to block the breeze much better than they were blocking the white light of Estonian summer nights, where dusk runs straight into dawn. Something buzzed near my ear and then disappeared. When I stared up in the dim light, I was pretty sure I saw a spider clinging to the ceiling, growing to the size of a fist as I watched and then disappearing when I blinked. I tossed and turned for half an hour until the birds declared that it was morning with a dawn chorus.

I rolled over and stared at my phone. It was just past four. I dropped the phone and put the pillow over my head. A short while later, half delirious with the heat and the oxygen deprivation from the pillow, I gave up and got up.

Cliff was snoring gently; pulling out my suitcase and rummaging through it in the half-light was sure to wake him. The only items of clothing that I could quickly find was the hot-pink bathing suit and a linen top that I had hung over the chair in the vague hope of keeping it from wrinkling.

It seemed unlikely that I would see anyone else at 5am in an Estonian holiday resort, so I settled for the bathing suit and walked out of the hotel and into the Paralepa forest. There was a 5-kilometer circular walk through the forest which passes a stone which is said to flipped Peter the Great’s carriage when he was travelling home from Ungru Manor which I had meant to explore on our last visit: this time I would see it for sure.

I suppose anyone who has lived in forested coastal areas with warm temperatures will already be flinching at the way I so blithely presented myself as a brightly-colored sacrifice to the mosquitoes who had, like me, woken in the early light of the sunrise or possibly even had only just emerged from their pupae, bewildered and ravenous.

The forest was warm and humid in the morning light and I swatted at my legs a bit as I started on the path, faintly annoyed about the mosquitoes. We should have brought the bug spray, I thought. But no matter, we could buy some in town if need be.

I didn’t realize the extent of the problem until I stopped to take a photo of a particularly beautiful purple flower, which my nature app told me was a Fragrant Orchid. I felt something crawling on my leg. I looked down to see a thousand mosquitoes feasting on my calves. I screamed and ran, knocking away the blood-sucking beasts as I followed the trail deeper into the forest. Pausing for breath, I looked down to see more mosquitoes already swarming my bare legs. I dashed forward, swiping at every exposed body part as I ran.

There are no further photographs documenting the walk. I made one more attempt, stopping in a sunny stretch to take a photograph of my legs but even as I moved the camera into place, I could see them swarming in hopes of sucking my body dry and I squealed like a school girl in a horror flick.

I didn’t dare pause to look again although it seemed that as long as I kept moving at a brisk pace, the vicious insects couldn’t keep hold to suck my body dry. Ahead of me was a turn off from the circular trail, promising to take me straight back to the main road. I took that, half-running until the trees gave way to the dusty parking lot of the hotel. The woman on reception gave me a perturbed look as I burst into the air-conditioned building with a relieved sigh. Her eyes traveled up and down my body. For a moment, I thought she was judging my beautiful new swim suit. Then I looked down to see that I was covered with smears of blood where I’d swatted the half-sated mosquitoes.

“It’s all mine,” I said in broken Estonian.

She did not appear to be relieved by this information.

With a bright smile meant to fend off any further questions, I retreated back to the hotel room, where I fell onto the bed and into a deep sleep until Cliff shoved me awake, warning me that I was going to miss breakfast if I didn’t get up.

He had no idea I had even been gone.

—