Walking Tour of Narva

View of Narva River showing opposing forts Narva Castlexx (Estonia) on the left and Ivangorod fortress in Russia on the right

On Day 2 we drove downtown, parked near the main square (any further and we would be driving over the bridge to Russia), and took a walking tour of the city.

We started out by checking out the Lutheran Cathedral and then the more attractive Orthodox church.

It's surrounded by Soviet Style apartments and another example of  typical Soviet architecture, the row of derelect sheds for the apartment dwellers' storage.

Then we walked along the river and down to the swimming beach.  From the swimming beach there was a bridge to an island in the river and then a view over to the Russian fort.

The blue shed appears to belong to a muscle building club for bare-chested retired men.  It was full of ancient looking barbells and on the right of the photo under the trees is a set of monkey bars for chinups, etc.

No fun allowed, Narva style:

in 3 languages

From there we visited the museum in the fort.

we climbed up the tower there were museum displays on multiple levels, till we got to the gallery at the top, where we could peer out in every direction,

With views of the old town

The steeple is the city hall.

the new town with its Soviet apartments,

the Russian side of the river,

and down into the courtyard below

That's the bridge to Russia in the rear of the photo.

where earlier in the summer they have demonstrations of the old ways of life in the fort.  Sorry we missed this! It looks like it would have been fun.

Then we checked out the town hall.

It looks impressive in this photo but actually it was quite run down and vacant.

We had a late lunch at a Turkish restaurant then back to the campsite for the rest of the evening.

Invertebrate of the day:

The Peacock Inachis io 

Narva

Narva is located in the extreme northwest of Estonia, across the Narva river from Russia.  It was bombed heavily in the 2nd World War so little of the original old city remains.    The Soviets built many ugly apartments and the area is economically repressed so less of them have been fixed up than in the other cities.

The majority of the citizens are of Russian, not Estonian, heritage and 95% are Russian speaking.  So it's defiantly a different atmosphere.  Narva gets a bad rap from the guidebooks and from other tourists we met.  Certainly it was harder to find English speakers.

But we didn't find Narva so bad.  

We started out at the beach resort of Narva-Jöesuu, formerly a popular beach resort with the Tsars and the Soviets.  It hasn't really been resurrected since liberation, so there's a lot of derelict buildings and overgrown lots with a few big spa hotels along the beach.  

Derelict former Tsarist pleasure palace.  The photos in the windows are a nice touch.

The beach is beautiful though.

It was a bit busier than it looks here.  People were sunbathing but no swimmers.  Too cold!

We stayed in a former manor farm, Vana-Olgina-Mois.  There were no other campers, but it turned out there were quite a few construction workers staying in the cabins and the hostel; in the evenings the dump trucks and vans would show up and they'd all pile out.

Lahemaa National Park

We spent two days in Estonia's Lahemaa National Park.  It was created to protect the landscape of erratic stones swept down from Scandinavia, the natural forests, bogs and the fishing villages.

Have to admit the boulders make the scenery more interesting than the endless sandy beaches along the Baltic Coast.

On Sunday we hiked along what must be the longest boardwalk in the world through Viru Bog, along with a significant portion of Tallinn's population out for a Sunday walk.

Although these pictures have been strategically taken to hide the masses

We hiked out to the end of Parispea peninsula and visited significant (signed and named) boulders on the beach and in the forest.

House sized boulder on the northernmost point of Estonia

We hiked a nature trail around a beaver pond but started in the wrong direction and liked that part the best, following the dark moving stream.

At the former forestry station at Oandu (now National Park Visitor Centre) we walked the very long and thorough plant trail where we learned quite a lot about native and introduced plants.

While the only wild mammals we have seen in both Latvia and Estonia are, unfortunately, roadkilled foxes, and one live rabbit, we were interested to see the luxurious skin of a raccoon dog.  It turns out raccoon dogs are actually native to Asia and are escapees from Russian fur farms.

The next day we visited the Käsmu peninsula.

More boulders. They have spiritual significance to the Estonians.

This one is called Matskivu, ie Mats' Boulder, but noone knows who Mats is anymore.

We stopped for coffee in the village of Käsmu.  This area seems sadly short on bakeries and baked goodies in general so we were forced to order pancakes with jam, which turned out to be delicious puffy things with a generous helping of home style cherry jam.

We ate on the patio and witnessed a team building exercise where they had to cooperatively guide a bicycle up and over a sawhorse.

We also visited the village of Altja,where the National Park Service has restored or reconstructed several buildings, including the thatched roofs.  We had a snack at the tavern where the roof was in the process of being rethatched.

We also watched the thatcher smoke a cigarette in amongst the thatch scraps.  I guess they're not too worried about fires in Estonia!

They had a replica of a traditional Estonian swing in the yard.  In former times the swings were an important meeting place for youth in the villages.

We tested it ourselves later

In the evenings we walked along the bike paths into the town of Võsu.  We had to, to get away from the clouds of noseeums that descended in our campsite in the evenings.

Resting on a boat-shaped bench, funded by the European community.  The brand new smooth bike trails were very popular with bicycles and in line skaters.  We met two very accomplished skaters in matching jerseys that must have been on the Estonian speed skating team!