Lahemaa National Park

Lahemaa is the oldest and largest national park in Estonia, an hour east of Tallinn on a coast cut into four peninsulas with bogs, pine forest and erratic boulders left by the ice between them. It protects landscape and buildings together, so restored Baltic German manor houses at Palmse, Sagadi and Vihula stand inside the park alongside fishing villages that were closed border zones under Soviet rule. Boardwalks cross the Viru bog, the easiest introduction to a landscape that covers a fifth of the country. Bears and elk live in the forest but are rarely seen.