The Kuursaal — or Assembly Hall — is a graceful wooden pavilion built in 1898 on the waterfront, designed to give health tourists somewhere elegant to spend their evenings. The building, with its white-painted fretwork and open veranda facing the bay, is the defining image of nineteenth-century Haapsalu as a seaside resort.
The seafront promenade stretching from the Kuursaal along the waterfront offers a pleasant walk with views across the shallow, warm bay. In summer the Kuursaal hosts concerts as part of the various music festivals that animate the town — the Old Music Festival, the Tchaikovsky Festival, and the August Blues Festival all use the building and grounds. The wooden walkway beside the water is a good spot at sunset.