Western Estonia & the Islands
Majestic Kuressaare Castle stands facing the sea at the southern end of the town, on an artificial island defended by stone-faced earth bastions and…
Must-see attractions in Western Estonia & the Islands
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Koguva is an exceptionally well preserved, traditional Muhu village, now protected as an open-air museum. One ticket allows you to wander through an old…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Pärnu’s long, broad, sandy beach – sprinkled with volleyball courts, pop-up bars, cafes and changing cubicles – is the city’s main draw in summer. A…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Pärnu's former Communist Party headquarters now houses one of Estonia's edgiest cultural spaces, established in 1992 as the country's first museum of…
-
Schloss Fall & Keila-Joa Castle
Western Estonia & the Islands
Flat Estonia isn't known for its waterfalls and, at 6m, this one in Meremõisa isn't all that high. It's particularly picturesque, however, partly due to…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
The great hulking shell of this burnt-out, 14th-century Cistercian monastery practically insists on exploration. Stairs lead up into the ruins, where you…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
A twitcher’s paradise, Matsalu is a prime migration and breeding ground for the Baltic and Europe generally: some 282 bird species have been counted here…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Occupying the keep of Kuressaare Castle since the late 19th century, this museum is devoted to Saaremaa’s nature and history. A large part of the fun is…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Haapsalu’s crumbling heart is its bishop’s castle, which was western Estonia’s centre of command from the 13th to the 16th centuries but now stands in…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Dating from 1874, this 43m lighthouse watches over Tahkuna Peninsula’s northwest tip. Beyond the lighthouse stands an eerie memorial to the victims of the…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Pöide, 3km south of the main highway, was the Saaremaa headquarters of the German Knights of the Sword and this fortress-church, built in the 13th and…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Founded in 1957, this reserve covers an area of 26 sq km, with a 26m observation tower at Saaremaa’s highest point, Raunamägi (a vertigo-inducing 54m)…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Charge up those camera batteries: this is the site of the largest and most photogenic grouping of wooden windmills on the islands. By the early 16th…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Estonia has one of the world’s highest concentrations of documented meteor craters. At Kaali, 18km north of Kuressaare, is a 100m-wide, 22m-deep,…
-
St Catherine's Lutheran Church, Karja
Western Estonia & the Islands
The pagan and Christian meet in this fortress-like 14th-century church. Outside there’s an interesting panel about pre-Christian symbols with particular…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Southern Kassari narrows to a promontory with some unusual vegetation and ends in the thin, 3km spit of land known as Sääre Tirp. An end-of-the-world kind…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Located in an old limestone lodge that once formed part of the local manor, and making up one-quarter of the dispersed Hiiumaa Museum, this small…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
There's no electricity supply to this pretty, whitewashed, thatch-roofed, Lutheran chapel (1801) at the eastern end of Kassari island, meaning that…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
On the western edge of Käina, the early-19th-century wood-and-thatch birthplace and childhood home of Rudolf Tobias (1873–1918), Estonia’s 'first…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Lending its name to the sleepy, surrounding settlement, this soberly symmetrical manor was built between 1755 and 1760 by Countess Ebba Margaretha…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
With its pyramid-like base and stout square tower, the inland Kõpu lighthouse is the best-known landmark on Hiiumaa, and supposedly the third oldest in…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Much of the beautiful and rarely visited western coast of the Tagamõisa Peninsula is protected as part of Vilsandi National Park, including the Harilaid…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Nineteenth-century Russian toffs, like their counterparts in Victorian England and Paris’ belle époque, liked nothing more than a good see-and-be-seen…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Kihelkonna's tall, austere, early-German church dates from before 1280. It’s dark and gloomy inside, partly due to the wooden supports holding up the roof…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Although this large, single-naved, dolomite church was rebuilt in its present form in 1836, its prized feature is considerably older: a medieval stone…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Built in the 1830s, this handsome, 60m-long timber house once lodged the directors of the Hiiu-Kärdla textile factory, burnt out in WWII. It's now perhaps…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Hidden away in the forest at Malvaste, 2km north of the Kärdla–Kõrgessaare road, this farm complex, founded by Swedes deported in 1781, is preserved as…
-
Railway & Communication Museum
Western Estonia & the Islands
Haapsalu’s attractive former train station, with its wooden-lace ornamentation and grand colonnade, opened in 1907 to transport the Russian nobility to…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Just inland from Sõru sadam (port) where the ferry to Saaremaa docks, this little community museum is worth a look. Downstairs you might find art from the…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Kõpu Peninsula’s second lighthouse stands 29.5m high, in all its blazing red glory at the western tip of the peninsula, only 200km from Stockholm. In 1874…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Based in former Soviet border-guard barracks, this ramshackle museum showcases military detritus, much of which was scavenged from the surrounding area…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Broad, shallow, reedy Haapsalu Bay is a key habitat for migrating waterfowl in Estonia, and is listed as a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Even in a nation where people still leave offerings in sacred groves, Orissaare's most famous landmark is, well, a little weird. Winner of the 2015…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
Northern Hiiumaa had a population of free Swedish farmers until they were forced to leave on the orders of Catherine the Great, with many ending up in the…
-
Tehumardi Night Battle Monument
Western Estonia & the Islands
On the night of 8 October 1944 a gruesome battle took place in the coastal village of Tehumardi between retreating German troops and a Soviet Estonian…
-
Sõrve Lighthouse & Visitor Centre
Western Estonia & the Islands
The first lighthouse on Sõrve promontory, just a primitive beacon, was built in the 17th century; the current 52m erection dates to 1960. To climb it, it…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
This fairy-tale wooden confection, painted pale green and white, sits plumb on the waterfront, surrounded by rose gardens. Stepping into the airy spa hall…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
The outline of the 17th-century, star-shaped Swedish ramparts that once surrounded old Pärnu can still be discerned on maps. The one remaining section and…
-
St Elizabeth’s Lutheran Church
Western Estonia & the Islands
Consecrated in 1750, this dignified, rust-coloured Lutheran church was named for Russian Empress Yelizaveta Petrovna, who gifted Pärnu's Lutherans 8000…
-
Western Estonia & the Islands
This museum covers 11,000 years of the Pärnu region's history, from prehistoric relics, right up to a reconstruction of a Soviet-era apartment. Pride of…
