The cute tower now known as Kiiu carries the dubious distinction of being the smallest surviving Medieval military building in the Baltics. This should lead the intrepid explorer to think from the start that there’s not a lot to go around here even though what there is has a wonderful atmosphere. If Kiiu ends up being on your route, do stop by and take a look!
As typical of the reconstructed Estonian/Latvian castles, the hoarding has been restored along with the upper floors of the tower allowing the place to be taken more seriously. Without the hoarding, it would only be a minor tower but that extra weight mid-level adds it a seriousness it wouldn’t otherwise have for me.
Built in the 1520’s, probably under the oversight of the local landowner Fabian von Tiesenhausen, this place didn’t even survive a century intact for as much of the local scenery it was shot to pieces in the Livonian War — and creating a storage place for the locals in the process if the stories can be taken at face value. The idea for a tower remained, however, and different attempts at rebuilding it were taken though most of the 19th and 20th centuries were spent in a ruined state from which a state-backed restauration project in the 1970’s saw the place rebuilt (along with the previously mentioned hoarding).
