Lahemaa

Lahemaa was declared in 1971 — the first national park anywhere in the Soviet Union — and the name explains the shape: land of bays. Four stubby peninsulas and four shallow bays alternate along fifty kilometres of the Gulf of Finland, strewn with erratic boulders the ice sheet dropped and the sea never bothered to move. Some are the size of houses; the fields of them at Käsmu are the densest in the country.

Inland the park turns quietly domestic. Palmse, Sagadi, and Vihula manors anchor the old Baltic-German estate landscape, restored down to the distilleries and orchards, and Käsmu itself is a village of white captains' houses from the era when it ran its own sailing school. For most of the Soviet decades this coast sat inside the border zone — locals needed permits, everyone else stayed out — which is a large part of why it still feels underbuilt.

What's worth knowing before you go

The Viru bog boardwalk is the popular introduction: an hour or two on planks across kettle pools and stunted pines, with a viewing tower where the peat opens out. For something emptier, the Oandu old-growth trail and the Altja–Mustoja coastal stretch carry a fraction of the feet. Käsmu's boulder-field shore path is the best of the coast in one walk.

Tallinn is only an hour away and day-trippers cluster at Viru raba and Palmse; mornings and evenings the park empties. The visitor centre sits in Palmse manor's stable block. Buses exist but are sparse — a car or bicycle makes the villages, bogs, and manors join up into one unhurried day.