As suspected, this wasn’t a slow day.  Pretty certain our step counters were the highest ever today!

This was despite the unanimous consensus that breakfast (the fuel for our highest step count ever) was sub-par. The atmosphere in the hotel basement was however outstanding (and worth sharing).

Despite a poor breakfast, we eagerly set off for the day’s adventures. To start, we drove about 30 minutes out of Tallinn to see the tallest waterfall in Estonia – Jagala.  This tall waterfall measures in at 8 meters, which is about 26 feet.  As it’s been drier than usual here, the waterfall was narrow as it can stretch to 165 feet during the rainy season.

As we arrived, we discovered that the road was closed, as both the road and the parking lot were being re-constructed into a modern (paved) venue parking lot. Rather than miss the opportunity, we decided to park on the edge of the road and walk back into the site.

While it didn’t compare to many other waterfalls we’ve seen (for example in Iceland or Africa), it was still a pretty neat site, actually made better by the lower volume of water falling from it. (This exposed more rock so that at least in Tim’s opinion, it looked “cooler”.)

While the photos look a little muddy, that is actually more of a reddish color from the iron pulled from the limestone being flowed across. (Jay knew and relayed this prior to the guide telling us that info.) There was also a short path to the top of upper portions of the waterfall, which due to the lower flows was mainly a large rock plateau.

Our next stop was in Lahemaa National Park, taking a walk through the Viru Bog.  The trail we walked is about 3.5 km (just over 2 miles) and snakes through a living wet bog.  This is an amazing specimen of plants, lichens, and animals. 

We didn’t see any of the wolves, lynxes, or bears that reside in the park, but we did enjoy the beauty!!  The trail varies from hard-packed gravel to a boardwalk to a pair of 2 x 10 planks supported by a cross beam.  Some of those weren’t steady at all, and some had starting decaying therefore were sketchy at best. The ones across open water were the most nerve racking as there was that concern “if I lose my balance, I’m going swimming”. (We’ll give you lots of pictures of all kinds to give you a good feel for the bog.)

The trail head was a large parking lot, with the initial trail a well graveled path into the forest.

As we got further into the forest, the path became less formally graveled, but still in great shape. Although we looked for the bears and wolves, we just found cool forest with game trails and little in the way of undergrowth like you would see around here.

In the picture below, be sure to check out the one tree on the right, just behind the other tree, that is next to the straight tree. Just kidding, but seriously, the volume and thickness of trees was just amazing!

Although the forest portion was an amazing and spectacular hike, we eventually came to the cross-road that led into the bog proper. (There was some confusion at which way to go, but we eventually decided we should be following the red-line trail, and luckily made the right call.)

The entrance to the bog started the boardwalk portion of our hike. A very nice boardwalk led off into the bog as seen below.

As we got farther into the blog, while there were still trees here and there, you definitely felt less like you were walking through a forest, and definitely more of an open bog (wet prairie like) area.

As more and more wet areas and ponded water started appearing, it definitely began feeling like a bog. The park did an excellent job of providing side overlook areas, with educational signage so you could learn more of the flora and fauna of the region as well.

After getting out into the bog, we found a large observation tower that gave a great aerial overview of the region. As you can see in the picture below, the tower also represented the end of the boardwalk, with the trail becoming a pair of 2×10’s as you moved on further into the bog.

At the start of the boardwalk we had a group of walkers with a pair of little puppers that we had let by us so that we wouldn’t hold them up. We caught up to them at the tower, and they let us pet the pups.  While we normally don’t include all of the dogs we meet, these two little furballs were absolutely adorable in their little jogging windsuits!!

After leaving the tower, we were on the smaller pathway, which is where the decay and unstableness noted previously existed. (The boardwalk was perfect with no issues.)

And then… our walkway expanded, to four boards wide. We thought it was going to be that way the rest of the way, but no, it soon went back to the two.

And then we came to the end. We were back in a forested area. However, while there signs directing you into the bog, there were no signs, nor indications of where the trail continued to other than the bog. We finally went to the top of the ridge, where it looked like a trail kind of ran along the ridge, where we finally saw a trail marker painted on a tree telling us we were going the right direction.

As we walked along the trail ridge, we then saw the road to our left, and saw Tomas with the van on the side of the road. Several of us were getting a little concerned about whether we needed to visit a tree (at least one of us who shall remain anonymous did just that), but the others were excited to see an out-house on the other side of the park road.

Now some of you might ask… why in the H E double hockey sticks would there be a big open window in the door for anyone to just look in and see you going about your business? Well, it is because the lock is on the outside (yea, someone could lock you in the out-house), so you needed an opening you could reach through to lock the door / unlock the door.

At this time, I’ll ask if you remember earlier in our story that bit about the sub-par breakfast? Well, it was coming into play as everyone was getting a bit hungry. As we’ve encountered nearly every day, finding a restaurant that wasn’t closed for the season was an issue.  Fortunately Tomas found a village with an open restaurant.

After a good meal, as always, we set off for the Kasmu Maritime Museum. Kasmu is a small coastal village, whose hey-day was definitely in the past. At first glance, we though “well this won’t be much”, as the museum looks like an older house from the outside. Even after first stepping inside the first impression was “who’s house are we imposing upon”… but it didn’t take long to be – wow!!!!

To begin with, there was a dog.  And the dog immediately became besties with Jay.  They touched noses, the dog laid on Jay’s feet, and there were lots of belly rubs and pets.  The dog later made friends with everyone else individually.  She was an Irish Setter named Raisin and was sooo soft!! 

Anyway, canines aside, the museum was incredible!! It is a private museum and actually is the home of Aarne Vaik, a retired sea captain, and his wife with the museum being his personal collection of sea faring related items. The home was actually in a historic border guard station, dating back to Imperial Russian times.

Aarne could not speak English, so his wife led an excellent tour of the museum, seemingly as knowledgeable as her husband. Aarne sat at a workstation and worked on cleaning up new (old) incoming pieces.

(above) The items on the wall behind Aarne are eel gigs, for gigging eels. The small sardine looking cans on the right are just that, cans that fish and eel was canned in (not sardines). The bigger paint size cans (below) are the same, just larger cans/containers.

As you can see, while it was somewhat organized, there was stuff just laying everywhere. There was cool stuff laying under other cool stuff, such that it would take hours to truly sift through all of the marvels at this museum.

And as mentioned earlier, Kasmu is a coastal village, so the museum was on the coast. Sondra and Jay walked over to the coast to take pictures.  Sondra said the trees and the beautiful coast reminded her of her dad’s hometown in Michigan.  And Sondra, always up for adventure, saw a ladder and decided to climb it for a better view. 

Our last stop of the day was visiting the Sagadi Manor. The Sagadi Manor estate dates back more than 500 years, with the current structures being an 18th Century estate constructed in 1753. The most recent of the manor owners were the Von Fock’s.

We arrived roughly 5 minutes before closing, however, they let us in to quickly walk through the manor, and of course the grounds were open to explore as well. Below are the pictures from the manor and grounds.

When we reached the hall (above), with the many antler racks hanging, we thought “interesting, we’ve seen similar trophy displays”. However, it did not come close to preparing us for the room to come next.

In fact, rather than even trying to describe it, it is best to just show you.

As we moved from the manor to the grounds, we were just as impressed with the grounds.

As we drove back to Tallinn, it was misty and drizzly, and it appeared the good streak of weather was over.  We decided to meet at 7 to walk to dinner, and by that time the precipitation had ended and the clouds were moving out.  Thanks again to the weather gods!

As this is SADLY our last night with Tomas, we asked him to go to dinner with us and he nicely accepted the invitation.  For dinner, we walked to the same restaurant where we had dessert the night before.  A variety of dishes and drinks were ordered, including a goat cheese burger (which to the chagrin of the order-er, was literally a patty made of goat cheese, which was not what was expected). 

When it was time for dessert, the waitress brought menus and we replied that we were there the previous night and didn’t need menus.  She said something to the effect of “oh yes, I had heard you were here”.  We couldn’t help but laugh, knowing how memorable our group can be!  A couple of tiramisus and a few chocolate lava cakes later, we headed back to our hotel.  The temperature had increased by a few degrees and it was a pleasant final walk through Tallinn.

We enjoyed our time in this beautiful not-so-well-known capital city, and appreciate the memories we made here.