North Coast of Estonia

After 7 days in the capitals of Finland and Estonia, it's time for nature!

We have noticed again what a difference there is between city life and life outside. Especially for us on vacation.

Of course, you enjoy the amenities of the big city with all its restaurants, sights, and so on. But we have also become aware again that life in the city is much more hectic and driven.

People pay less attention to each other and anonymity is clearly noticeable.

So we were glad when we left the city limits of Tallinn, heading west, and curious about what awaits us.

A city is not always representative of the state of a country and society. The separation of Estonia from the former Soviet Union may be 30 years ago, but we have already noticed in Tallinn that there are many Russians in the country who maintain a kind of parallel society. But it goes both ways. Let's see what it looks like elsewhere.

Our first stop is a waterfall in Keila-Joa.

A really beautiful place and good for a walk. Henry, however, didn't feel like it at all and threw a fit. He wanted to do his own thing. When we let him, it turned out to be a dive par excellence.

Loud screaming and the realization that the walk was not right for this day brought us a few kilometers further to our sleeping place.

The Estonian Forestry (RMK) has beautiful camping sites and hiking trails throughout the country for free use and has also set up an app for it.

We gratefully accept the offer and are happy about a nice pitch right by the sea.

We also spent our first real day at the beach here and enjoyed the perfect weather.

The next day we continued to the next RMK camping site, in Peraküla.

On the way there, we stopped at a nice café, bought fresh bread and other homemade delicacies.

We spent the rest of the day chilling on the beach. Annika and I went swimming in the Baltic Sea for the first time and Henry is becoming more and more friends with the sea. In the evening, the camping site suddenly became very crowded. We wondered why and then realized that it's Friday. Weekdays no longer have any meaning for us. Another nice realization.

The Estonians we have encountered so far have been rather distant towards us. We don't know yet if it's because we're German or if they, like the Finns, are a rather reserved people. We will continue to observe...

...we won't let that stress us out and enjoy the wonderful evening sun.

On July 20th, I had my 33rd birthday. After getting up, I was surprised by a beautifully set table. There was also delicious Maria Catharina cake. We had bought it the day before in the café. There is even a legend about the cake, but that would go beyond the scope here.

After breakfast in the best weather, we wanted to go to the beach. The preparation took only 1 hour and then we went away from the beach after 15 minutes because Henry was too tired :)

We knew how to help ourselves, put the child in the carrier and went for a short hike. As befits a birthday with a repeated digit, we had a nice wine spritzer with us. So we could hike relaxed.

Then back to the beach again and in the evening we had a delicious dinner. All this in perfect weather. I couldn't have imagined a better day.

Thank you very much for all the good wishes. I was very happy that so many people thought of me!

Ole