Kuressaare Episcopal Castle
The best-preserved medieval castle in the Baltics, a square keep ringed by earth bastions.
Kuressaare Episcopal Castle was begun in the fourteenth century as the stronghold of the bishops of Ösel-Wiek and is the only medieval castle in the Baltic states to survive largely intact. It is a compact square block of dolomite around a small courtyard, with a defence tower and a watchtower at opposite corners, vaulted halls, a chapel and a refectory inside. In the seventeenth century, under Danish and then Swedish rule, the castle was wrapped in earth bastions and a wide water-filled moat.
The castle now houses the Saaremaa Museum, whose displays run from the island's geology and prehistory through the bishopric and the estate era to the twentieth century, including the Soviet decades and deportations. Visitors can walk the vaulted rooms, climb the towers and cross the moat bridge into the surrounding castle park, laid out in the nineteenth century when Kuressaare developed as a spa town. The bastions and ramparts are open ground used for concerts, fairs and the town's summer events.
Highlights
- Only Baltic medieval castle preserved largely in its original form
- Dolomite keep with defence tower, chapel and vaulted halls
- Seventeenth-century bastions and water-filled moat
- Saaremaa Museum displays on island history inside the castle
![Afrique occidentale française : Cathédrale à St Louis / [photogr. Eugène] Gallois ; [photogr. reprod. par Radiguet et Massiot pour la conférence donnée par] Gallois](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Afrique_occidentale_fran%C3%A7aise_-_Cath%C3%A9drale_%C3%A0_St_Louis_-_%28photogr._Eug%C3%A8ne%29_Gallois_%3B_%28photogr._reprod._par_Radiguet_et_Massiot_pour_la_conf%C3%A9rence_donn%C3%A9e_par%29_Gallois_-_btv1b532798828.jpg/500px-thumbnail.jpg)
![[Golestan, Le Salon et Fete de l'equinode, Teheran, Iran (le Pavillion du Trone)]](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/-Golestan%2C_Le_Salon_et_Fete_de_l%27equinode%2C_Teheran%2C_Iran_%28le_Pavillion_du_Trone%29-_MET_DP202918.jpg/500px--Golestan%2C_Le_Salon_et_Fete_de_l%27equinode%2C_Teheran%2C_Iran_%28le_Pavillion_du_Trone%29-_MET_DP202918.jpg)
![Théâtre de la guerre dans l'Inde sur la coste de Coromandel / par M.B.C.T. [Monsieur Bourcet Capitaine ?] ; gravé par Croisey](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Fort_de_Calicuta_-_btv1b59706294.jpg/500px-Fort_de_Calicuta_-_btv1b59706294.jpg)
