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Distance: 5.69 km, flat. Duration: 1.5–2 hr. Grade: Easy. Recommended: comfortable clothes and shoes for walking; waterproof hiking boots during or after rain. This is an easy hike and gives you the opportunity to see the bogs and swamp from the biggest wooden watchtower in Estonia. The first part of the track until the watchtower is even a wheelchair-accessible 1 m wide wooden path. After the watchtower wooden planks continue.
First you walk through a pine forest, then go out onto a wide wooden floor leading through a wet but not yet melted soil with stunted pines. About 1 km from the parking lot you will find the observation tower, which you must climb. From the tower begins a dike that stretches along the most real marsh, winding among small lakes – on one of them even a bathhouse is built. The water is dark, but very clean – you can dip. From the tower it is about 1 km to the eastern edge of the swamp, and then you either need to return the same way, or go through the forest further west, bypassing the swamp from the north. There you will be walking on the swamp's magnificent mosses, quietly, calmly and somehow a little too lifeless.
Download coordinates: GPX, KML.
Viru bog
One of the most suggested place to go there is Viru raba, which has a foot track and observation tower. You can start and finish in same location if you go to the tower and back (2 km) or take a round trip around the swamp (5 km), see trails under #Do. There are good maps and information tables at the track.
The track over the swamp is made of wood; generally, no special foot wear is necessary. Sometimes there may be more water in the bog, and at those times, waterproof hiking boots are recommended.
Not in Lahemaa National Park but at its border, and larger and more diverse than Viru raba. A huge bog with countless water pools and also a wooden plank trails over the swamp.
A small cemetery church built in the middle of the 19th century. If you are lucky enough to get inside, pay attention to the huge and rather modernist picture of the Crucifix in the altar.
The northernmost point/peninsula of mainland Estonia is a stony spit that stands out almost 1 km into the sea. It is about 4 km from Viinistu. Here you wade through the sand and rocks, along the way enjoying the panorama, stones, and pretty paginated birds. Take a stop at the Mähu boulders in Pärispea village. You can climb on it with a special rope, and from it explore the neighbourhood. Excellent panoramas and thickets of dog rose. There are sandy beaches, where you can swim in warm weather.
Boulders in Lahemaa are everywhere, but in Käsmu they are especially numerous and huge. Each large boulder has its own name, indicated on the park's maps placed here and there. One of the largest stones can be seen from the left side on the road to Käsmu, about 1 km before the village. Another interesting place is the northern tip of the peninsula, where the stones form a kind of bridge to the island about 500 m from the Shore of the Devils. You can get there by going to the very end of the road (there is a small parking lot) and further along the path through the forest. Here you will find the largest boulder, Kiasma, which is more than twenty meters in diameter.
Vihula mõis
Perhaps, this is one of the most interesting Estonian estates. It does not have a luxurious palace - on the contrary, both manor houses are small and rather modest. However, a huge complex of outbuildings has survived; barns, stables, a tea house, a laundry, a water mill and even a distillery. All of them from the 19th century and in perfect condition, performing different functions in this spa hotel on the manor. Adjoin a restaurant, a tavern, a cosy café next to the water mill, a swimming pool, a gym, etc. There is no museum. However, the appearance of the buildings, their picturesque pile and the pond with the hammered wooden bridges deserve attention. At the entrance from the west a restored windmill appears.