This spring we got some cheap flight tickets and went for a triple country in four days weekend trip. Finland (Helsinki), Estonia & Latvia (Riga) – here we go!
This post is about Estonia. What is interesting in this small plot of land ?Why go there, to this “post-Soviet” country? Read on, and you’ll find out.
We crossed the borders from Finland to Estonia in a quite cool way – on a board of the ferry going from Helsinki to Tallinn. Gulf of Finland is relatively narrow here, only a bit over 80 km. Whole journey takes around 2.5 hours. Good thing is that ferry is owned by Estonian company, so you drink aboard for milder Estonian prices, nowhere as steep as Finnish ones :-). This is quite popular things to do on Friday or Saturday by Helsinki crowd, just to do a round-trip on booze ship and not even getting out at Tallinn.
But we resisted that temptation for now and explored old Tallinn itself. The old city still have part of its defence walls intact. Inside you can find winding, narrow and beautiful cobblestone streets. City center is now well known as place to visit, and being relatively small, it feels a bit touristy.
My tip for “not to miss place” in Tallinn will be a Seaplane Harbour. Used to be a hangar for seaplanes in the area of pre-Word War I tsarists Russia, and a part of Peter the Great’s Naval Fortress. Nowadays it’s very modern maritime museum, with interesting boats, submarine and other related interactive fun stuff. Great to spend at least half day or more and fun for kids too.
Another tip, for really excellent local food and flawless service for not so expensive prices is Rataskaevu 16 . Most probably best food I have ad in 2017! Beware, here and almost anywhere else in the old town you have to make a reservation for dinner in advance.
Next day we rented a car and went off for little countryside exploring. As Estonia is small country, I would say a couple days to one week will be more then enough, even if you plan to visit island of Saarema.
We visited those places worth to be mentioned.
Rummu Underwater Prison
This was former Soviet max-security prison, a little gulag, place you never ever would want to end. Prisoners were forced to work in adjacent quarry. Couple years after the fall of the Soviet Union it was closed. Then, with nobody to pump out ground water, big lake emerged. Part of the buildings are now underwater. Very interesting and quite haunting place for a bit of urbexing. But be careful, still full of dead shrap razor-wires…
Ungru Manor
Created as a near-perfect copy of Merseburg Castle in Halle, Germany, the manor that remains today was built in the 1890s on the site of a manor that had been there since the 1500s. As the story goes, the son of Ungru’s owner visited Merseberg Castle and fell in love with the princess there. He proposed, but the princess was so fond of her father’s castle, she claimed that she was going to stay there forever, so the son returned home and vowed to recreate the German castle for her. He went back to Estonia and began construction, building out most of the structure including most of the exterior and its 11 gables. However before the interior could be finished, word came that the princess had died. The son himself died not long after in 1908. The house was left incomplete and without an owner. (C) http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/ungru-manor
That fairy-tale story aside, this is really very romantic ruin, very close to road and town of Haapsalu. You can go to the abandoned former Soviet jet fighter airfield next to it, but apart from few empty hangars, it is not that interesting. It is now used for car racing.
HAAPSALU
This was quite fancy seaside spa resort in the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. We got there pre-season, so it was a little bit sleepy, but we liked that. There is an interesting old castle in the middle of the town, good friendly cafe/bar/restaurant at Müüriääre kohvik. Few Victorian villas and spa on the beach shows how fancy it used to be there when there was a direct train line from Saint Petersburg and even tsars together with famous composer Peter Tchaikovsky loved going there for a summer break. The city beach is supposed to be the warmest in Estonia in summer.
VILJANDI
That was the biggest surprise on the way back to Tallinn. A little town with great castle ruins on top of the hill, few quite German interesting villas from around turn of the 20th century. There is a nice lake as well, but there was not quite yet the bathing mood in March :-).
