9.8: To Rõuge!

Today I was off to Rõuge! The morning was still quite rainy and overcast. My bus was due to depart at noon so I has time to have a coffee at Werners, say g’day to a friend from the language course and go shopping for a few supplies. 

More cyclists

The bus journey was in two parts, the first from Tartu to Võru, a tad over 1 hour and the second from Võru to Rõuge, 30 minutes. The first bus was nearly full, packed with people of all ages, mostly Estonian, although I could detect a few foreign accents. The bus dropped off and picked up various people along the way, with some stops seemingly in the middle of open farmland. The second bus was a bit more humble in proportions and there was only one other passenger, also going to Rõuge. We travelled along a narrow road through forests into the town. 

The little bus that could

En route to Rõuge

For those who don’t know, Rõuge is where my paternal grandmother’s family lived prior to leaving Estonia in early 1941. There, my great great grandfather purchased a mill after running a successful milling and farming operation at nearby Visela. They produced some of the first white flour in the Baltics. Come the 1990’s, when Estonia regained its independence, my great grandmother was given back the land that her family had owned in Rõuge. As we were all happily settled in Australia, she decided to gift the land to the Rõuge Municipality – the local government body. Since then we have maintained a good rapport with the council and always visit when in Estonia. The mill building, which was majorly altered during the soviet times into a textile factory, it now owned and operated as a guesthouse, Ala-Rõuge. Another good family friend, Laili Ago, operates it.

The Rõuge buusijaam is, rather conveniently, just across the road from Ala-Rõuge. As I wandered in Laili and her daughter greeted me very warmly. As Laili only speaks Estonian, my language skills were put to the test. Fortunately her daughter was able to translate when things for a bit tricky. Laili really is a most lovely person, when I enquired about paying she insisted that I didn’t need to pay anything, pointing to a photo of my grandmother and auntie which is on the wall of the foyer.

After getting settled in, I went out to walk around town. By this stage the weather was clearing with the sun occasionally appearing from behind the clouds. We were last here in April 2012 and it was still quite wintery, so the town was certainly looking much greener. I had a coffee and cake at Saarsilla talukohvik. I also checked out local shop which houses a most impressive collection of local produce and handicrafts. 

Local produce

Handicrafts

For dinner I went to Ööbikuoru Villa, the only place in town which does dinner, and had a very nice fish dinner. I must say, it feels great to be back here. It’s a really lovely, quiet town. Yet, it is also very innovative. More about that in tomorrow’s post.

Dinner