bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

David Wilson

1 St Catherine's Passage, Tallinn

Estonia's capital, Tallinn,  is a cultural melting pot  of  Estonian, Germanic and Slavic genes.  The city's medieval backdrop  has  charm too,  thanks to  powerful defensive structures and St Catherine's Passage, one of the  city's most enchanting architectural features. This golden thoroughfare  links Vene and Muurivahe streets  and seems an open studio for local artisans.

2 Lahemaa National Park

A one-hour bus trip north of the capital,  the 1,000-sq km  Lahemaa  National Park is the largest in Estonia. Its name means Land of Bays,  thanks to its profusion of lakes, rivers and waterfalls,  and the Palmse baronial hall  has lynx,  mink, black storks  and brown bear, whose  roar can be heard  on  www.sunsite.ee/animals/Imetajad/URSARC2.htm.

3 Dance of Death,

St Nicholas Church, Tallinn

Painted by Berndt Notke (1440-1509),  the masterpiece underscores the era's obsession with death, which lurked around every bedpan. Dance of Death consists of scantily clad skeletons  trying to entice a procession of dignitaries such as the pope to join them. The skeletons  grab them, but the dignitaries refuse to budge, stand stiffly and await their fate.

4 Lake V?rtsjarv, south Estonia

Estonia's most spectacular lake has its own mermaid and also draws birdwatchers to wagtails and redshanks. At the heart of the 270-sq km lake lies Ghost Island, or Tondisaar, where, according to a legend spread by the South Estonian Tourism Foundation, mysterious forces plant secret messages  in 12 foreign languages.  If you read just part of a message, the lake will supposedly start to murmur. Keep reading and giant waves will rise up and drag you into the water. The solution, apparently, is to read the message backwards. Or make sure you visit when the lake is tamed by ice, between about now and the end of April.

5 Kadriorg Palace

This Baroque  palace on the northern outskirts of Tallinn stands in sheltered parkland peppered with statues and ponds.  Italian architect Niccolo Michetti  built Kadriorg, in honour of the empress Catherine I, on the orders of the Russian tsar Peter the Great in 1718.  Most of the Russian rulers, from Peter's daughter Elizabeth, to the last Romanov emperor, Nicholas II, visited the imperial summer home. The palace now hosts the Foreign Art Museum of Estonia, while the nearby Mikkel Museum displays works including some of Rembrandt's etchings.

6 Saaremaa, west coast

The largest of Estonia's 1,500 islands, Saaremaa has supposedly been inhabited for 5,000 years. During the Soviet era,  until 1991, it was off-limits, as the  Russians feared Saaremaa could serve as an escape route to the west. But  the sparsely populated island  hasn't changed much and has  13th-century Gothic churches, a 14th-century castle and dazzling scenery.  When you're looking for natural oddities such as clouded Apollo butterflies and Roman snails,  try not to fall into the island's sprinkling of meteorite craters.

7 Toompea Castle, Tallinn

Few countries revolve around their capital city as much as Estonia, whose national population numbers just 1.5 million. Much of the action  is in Tallinn. One of its biggest draws are the remains of Toompea Castle,  the 13th-century Danish pile that has routinely changed hands  between a slew of northern European powers.  When Estonia first became independent of Russia in 1918, the nation's parliament,  the Riigikogu, was built on the site, and in a unique expressionist design.

8 Lake Peipsi,

Estonian-Russian border

Connected by the River Emajogi  to its similarly shallow sister, the V?rtsjarv, Lake Peipsi is the largest cross-boundary body of water in Europe and the fourth-largest lake in Europe. Lake Peipsi covers  more than 3,500 sq km, of which 44 per cent belongs to the Republic and 56 per cent to the Russian Federation. Don't drink the water, however - it was poisoned by the Soviet industrial complex.  Peipsi  was the site of one of the strangest conflicts in history: the Ice Battle, in  1242, when Estonia was part of the Russian  empire and the prince of Novgorod, Alexander Yaroslavitz Nevski,  stopped the eastward advance of the German knights on the frozen lake. The fight on ice must at times have been a hit-and-miss, not to say slapstick affair.

9 Parnu Mud Baths, southwest Estonia

By Estonian standards, Parnu is lively, with  hotels, restaurants and spacious beaches where you can swim without choking on a cocktail of oil and uranium. In 1837, some entrepreneurs  converted a  tavern near the beach into a spa, paving the way for the  mudbaths' development. The sick and the self-obsessed flock to the facility because the  substance is  said to be good for disorders of the joints, spinal column, nervous system  and gynaecological ailments. Faint hearts beware: you have to strip and the mud is black and  hot.

10 Paldiski

Paldiski  used to be a flowery village  with a fishery, pharmacy and a library.  With the cold war,  this northern settlement  became a submarine base. Apparently, the combined might of the  base's ships that ventured everywhere from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean was enough to destroy the world several times. Now the base is a ruin. If its atmosphere becomes too much, you can just turn your head and enjoy the sweeping views of the Gulf of Finland.



Perfect 10