Oh my bog: our trip to Lahemaa National Park, and a stop in Tartu on the way to Latvia

Our last few days in Estonia were a trip to the first national park, Lahemaa, and a stopover in University town Tartu on our way to Latvia.

On the morning of our Tallinn departure, we stopped by the Balti Jarma Turg again to pick up provisions for our nights in the park. We bough chanterelle mushrooms at 6.50 euro a kilo, a half kilo of pickles that the seller scooped out of a bucket and into a plastic bag for us, some tomatoes and zucchini, and the salmon. Oh the salmon. We stopped by the fish market to shop for some smoked salmon to take with us and due to a miscommunication with the woman ended up with two entire bone-in smoked salmon filets, maybe 4-5 pounds. We paid less than 5 euro for it, and it would become the main component of our meals for the next two days.

We rented a car for 2 days to drive out to Lahemaa National Park- we booked it a few months in advance, and the total was about $80 for two days. We picked it up at the Tallinn Train Station and headed out east to the park, about an hour's drive. Scott knows how to travel manual, thankfully, and he was very excited to zoom out of Tallinn.

On the way to our Airbnb, we stopped at the Viru Bog, one of the most popular sites in Lahemaa, and for good reason. The 5-ish km trail goes through the bog and back through the forest. Wooden paths have been built over the bog to make it easier to traverse the area. It was immensely beautiful- I had never seen anything like it. The weather was perfect.

View of the bogland from a tower

Forest walk on the way back to the car

A quick walk from our cottage

 We arrived at our Airbnb, a cottage in Eru, and immediately I realized I didn't read the fine print of the listing, and that we'd be "roughing it" for a couple of days. For example, I didn't know we would be without a proper sink/shower/bathtub, and that alternatively, we'd have a hose that came in the window to the "wash room" and we could heat water up by starting a fire or using the small induction stove (We opted for the latter). The bathroom was an outhouse sort of thing, which was fine except it had no ventilation (something I learned in my summer public health class is incredibly important for composting toilets).

I didn't take any pictures, but you can see the pretty ones that sold us on the Airbnb page. It should be noted that at $53/night this was our most expensive Airbnb, and most others in the area went for well over $100.

That evening we took a long walk through the woods, longer than expected, and afterwords made a massive dinner of penne pasta, zucchini, chanterelles, and- you guessed it- smoked salmon. The smell of salmon permeated our small cottage, but it was truly delicious.

The next day was our only full day in the park, so we got up early to drive out to the Oandu nature trail in an old-growth forest, which was also mostly on wooden walkways. It was beautiful and quiet. The nature trail pointed out tree markings where young moose and wild boar made scratches. We also saw some trees that had been previously been used to gather sap- they had strange feather-like markings on them. Overall it was really cool, and I was excited to do more hiking throughout the day. 

Into the old growth forest

Sap markings on trees

We continued our day at the Kasmu trail, which in its entirety is about 10 miles, but we did a shorter option and used the bike trail to cut up to the top of the peninsula, along the Baltic coast and had salmon sandwiches for lunch. We continued along the coastal path- the scenes were amazing. Later that day we drove up another peninsula to get to the nothernmost point in Estonia. In the evening, after another feast of salmon pasta, we caught the sunset right after the sun had disappeared behind the hills. I was a little disappointed we didn't get the full sunset experience, but looking back it was still a beautiful, serene moment.

That evening I was also wishing we had another day in Lahemaa- there were still several trails we didn't end up getting to, and while I didn't love the primitiveness of our cottage, I was in love with the area, and wanted to spend more time in nature instead of driving back to Tallinn. I take it as a sign that I'll have to come back someday.

SO excited about reaching the northernmost point in Estonia, lol

The end of the sunset we almost saw

MORE SALMON

 We drove back to Tallinn the next morning to drop off our car and spend a few hours in the city before heading to our next destination. Our original plan was to take a bus to Parnu, a resort town on the western coast, and spend a day there before going to Tartu, but instead we decided to take it easy and hang out in Tallinn before taking a train to the university town.

We visited the Museum of Occupations, which was about the Nazi and Soviet invasions into Estonia, which was sort of informative but not really great if Estonian wasn't your first language. We then sat down to our final meal of salmon sandwiches, this time with goat cheese and a sprinkle of dill.

After a little more wandering (and a beer), it was finally time to hop on the train. It was an almost 3 hour ride to Tartu that would have been perfectly pleasant if not for the unexpected switch to buses for the last hour. Fortunately the ticket lady spoke some English and was able to tell us what was going on!

Center of Tartu- Bachelorette party?

We arrived in Tartu that evening and stayed in a hostel for two nights. Since school hadn't started yet, there wasn't much energy to the town (especially on Sunday, our full day there) so we wandered around a little bit but spent a lot of time working on school stuff- Scott had some work to do for his PhD program, I had a final paper to write that I neglected to do before I left. We did have some time to visit the Supilinn neighborhood, an area that historically housed low-income residents, and translates to "Soup Town." The residents have a great number of backyard gardens, and the streets are named after vegetables! It was a fun way to see pre-WWII architecture in Estonia.

On Monday morning, the day we left, I was able to finish my paper, which was a big relief. We then jumped back on the train to go to Valga/Valka, a border town between Latvia and Estonia. We had a few hours to chill there before we took a train to Cesis, our final destination for the day. More to come in the next post!