The Lümanda Lime Park is located in western Saaremaa. An adventure trail through more than ten old lime kilns, old and new quarries, and a slaking bath introduce the process, including the chemical reactions that turn limestone into lime, and then turn the lime mortar or limewash on your walls back into limestone.
Upon reaching the lime park, you can take a hiking trail that is equipped with multi-lingual explanatory plaques, leading you through the field of lime kilns. Back at the main building, you can see a film and experiment with lime - get the stone to boil without heating, and make bubbles in clean water to produce limescale.
The lime kilns, which are nearly a century old, have been cleaned, repaired and arranged in such a way as to demonstrate different stages of the ancient lime-producing technique. The lime kilns have different shapes and sizes - each one following the ideas of its owner. They come from a time when making and selling lime was a profitable activity, so every farm in the area set up its own lime firing kiln on this resource-rich land, trading slivers of coastal property to neighbours if needed.
The process of firing lime takes between 50 and 75 hours, at a temperature of 1100 to 1300 degrees Celsius. The kilns can fit up to 30 tons of stone at a time. (CaCO3=CaO+CO2)
After firing, the limestone cools over 2-3 days and nights. Then the quicklime is taken to a slaking bath, where the chemically active rock is mixed with water. (CaO+H2O=Ca(OH)2)
In grout, the hydrated lime reacts with carbon dioxide and turns back into CaCO3, the main component of limestone. (Ca(OH)2+CO2=CaCO3+H20)
The theme park has picnic, bonfire and BBQ facilities. The main building can be used to host events.