Day 47: Lahemaa National Park

MAY 20 - Head out east from Tallinn along Route 1 (E20) for about an hour to the Lahemaa NP visitors center. There is a ton to read about, but most of it is in Estonian. We watch the slide show instead. There are many trails and sights in this park, several full day’s worth, but our time is really limited so just pick a few.

Lahemaa NP covers a huge area along the north coast of Estonia, but isn’t just solid park as it contains many towns and farms. The Baltic German nobility built several large estates, many of which are now preserved as tourist attractions. Some old growth forest is preserved, along with several large bogs. The topography is mostly flat limestone, but with a terrace several kilometers inland that defines a past coastline (before the land rose). One interesting point brought up in the visitors center was how the Soviets were careful to restrict development in this area, given its important ecosystems. For that reason it is so well preserved today.

Today’s route: (A) Hotel in Tallinn, (B) Lahemaa visitor’s center, (C) Ouandu Beaver trail, (D) Käsmu Peninsula, (E) Viru Bog Nature Trail, (F) Tallinn airport.

A White stork building a nest near the visitor’s center.

The Altja River, as seen along the Oandu Beaver trail. Various remnants of beaver dams and felled trees can be seen here.

There is a riot of new growth in the riparian zone.

The park encloses a series of four sharp peninsulas into the Baltic. The seashore above is at Vana-Jüri Kivid, north of Käsmu. This is a stellar example of glacial erratics (rocks carried by Ice Age glaciers from up north and dropped here (when the ice melted). It was really cold up here, with a strong wind.

This looks suspiciously like a defensive bunker. I will posit that this was built by the Soviets, who heavily fortified the Estonian coastline back in the day, and created exclusive military zones (especially along the eastern coast, where this is).

A Scott’s pine forest, on the Viru Bog Nature trail. These silent, monolithic stands of trees are all over the place in Lahemaa NP. The fact that there is so little understory suggests that the soil is very poor. This type of tree needs very little nutrient besides water and light.

The portion of the Viru Bog trail that actually passes over the active bog has been done with an elevated wooden path.

Many small lakes populate the bog, some are beginning to vanish as mosses fill them up. In places the peat layer extends to four meters depth.

A wooden observation tower affords an awesome view of the bog.

In the wetter areas, tree growth is heavily impaired. The small trees may well be as old as the large ones in the foreground.

For the full effect, your tour of the bog should include a rainstorm.

Turn in the car at the airport, was a rental for just 24 hours. Unlike Finland and the UK (where I just dropped the keys in a slot and then left), the rental guy spends about five minutes going over the vehicle, and I can only leave when he gives the OK. I get the sense that there is a lot of abuse of rentals here. For one thing, they placed a EUR 1300 hold on my credit card when I drove it away yesterday, which caused all sorts of havoc with my card limit.

We eat some vaguely Italian food in a bar and back to our somewhat dilapidated hotel. There is a lot of revelry in the night, people going in and out, banging doors and shouting, until maybe 3 am. This is the first place we’ve stayed in our trip so far when it was hard to sleep due to other travelers.

Estonia