Tours in Estonia

Start in Tallinn, because that is where most people land, and walk uphill. The Old Town is a tangle of cobbled lanes that rewards wandering without a plan. Town Hall Square is the place everyone ends up, with café tables spilling across the stones and the tall Gothic town hall watching over them. Walk a few minutes in any direction and the crowds thin out. Doorways get lower, passages get narrower, and you find courtyards where someone is hanging washing or fixing a bicycle.

The lanes make more sense once you know how the town worked. Merchants and guilds lived below, craftspeople worked in the side streets, and the ruling class looked down from Toompea Hill. You can still feel that split as you climb. St. Catherine's Passage is a good place to slow down, with its workshops where people make ceramics, felt and glass. St. Olaf's Church pulls your eye upward from almost everywhere. Up on Toompea, the onion domes of Alexander Nevsky Cathedral face the castle and the Parliament, and the viewing platforms give you a sea of red roofs with the Baltic beyond.

Estonia is much more than its capital, though. Tartu is a university town where students fill the cafés and the riverside feels easy and unhurried. Pärnu is the summer resort on the coast, all long beaches and wooden villas. Out on the islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, the pace drops further, with windmills, juniper fences and quiet roads. Lahemaa National Park offers forest, bogs and old manor houses within reach of Tallinn. Soomaa is the place for bog walking, and in some seasons for canoeing through flooded woodland.

Eat rye bread, smoked fish and something with sour cream, and try a sauna if anyone offers. If you want a guide for Tartu, a manor in Lahemaa or an island road trip, ask. A local guide can build it around you.