After a hearty breakfast, we picked up our rental bicycles and followed the coastal bike path to exit Tallinn. We headed due East towards Lahemaa National Park, stopping at the sights along the way. The roads were completely flat, with sparse traffic and nice neighborhoods. It was incredibly pleasant riding, which we’d find to be the case for most of the week.

We dropped by roadside cafes and restaurants, and dipped in the sea at Andineeme beach—ending up 3-4 hours behind on my rough schedule, but no matter, the roads were easy and it was bright enough till 9pm. We rolled into our bed-and-breakfast (a real one, not an Airbnb!) in Pudisoo, glad to be greeted by a friendly host and hot showers.

In the morning, we had another great breakfast and wandered around the spacious property, marvelling at everything that was nestled there among tall trees—a greenhouse, a chicken coop, a sauna, and a few cabins—and dreaming of a retreat there.

After leaving Pudisoo, we stopped by Kolga, checking out the first of many manors we’d find on this trip. We then made our way to Viru bog, where we did a 6km trek on the boardwalk and through the pine forests. It was a gorgeous walk, and stripping down for an impromptu dip in the lake was the cherry on the cake!

To round out our “triathlon”, we cycled two hours up to Võsu in the afternoon, through the kind of lush forest I’d spent the previous month reading about in The Man Who Spoke Snakish. The skies opened as we arrived in Võsu, so we skipped a beach swim and enjoyed a wonderful dinner and early night in. Our room for the night was in the village post office, renovated into an inn after Covid.

In the morning, we left behind our bags to visit the nearby village of Käsmu. It was super pretty and peaceful. We sat on the beach, visited the excellent Käsmu Sea Museum, and walked to the tip of the peninsula. We got to try a village swing, too, after having encountered this Estonian tradition the previous day.

After coming back for lunch at Võsu beach, we made our way to Vihula. I’d planned for Day Three to be a kind of rest day—just 30km more on the bike, then a relaxed evening at the 16th-century spa & manor where we’d be staying. But it turned out to be quite eventful, foraging for chanterelles, buying blueberries by the side of the road, dipping our feet into the sea at Vergi Tuletorn, and a tasty mug of homemade lemonade at Altja. We ended up rushing up to our massage appointments, after which I had a beer and antler steak for dinner. What a day!

On Day Four, we left behind Lahemaa National Park, continuing East towards the border with Russia. It was a long, quiet ride from Vihula to Liimala. We stopped by the medieval fortress at Toolse, stumbled upon a bay of wild swans, and had lunch in a cantine in the industrial town of Kunda.

In Liimala, our hotel was right on the stormy waterfront. The restaurant chef next door agreed to cook our chanterelles, turning it into a delightful appetizer. We went on to have an entertaining dinner, peering out to the eclipse and the people looking at it. There were even fireworks, as a backdrop to a surprise marriage proposal that the whole hotel staff was in on (and us, too!).

On our last day on the saddle, we followed the Saka-Ontika-Toila road, which gives pedestrian access to stretches of Baltic Klint, including a staircase that scales the entire height of the highest waterfall in Estonia, Valaste Waterfall. This is also part of the EuroVelo 10 Baltic Sea Cycle Route, which as of 2026 is an onramp to a busy highway that abruptly gets cut off at the border.

While mapping the route, I’d played with the idea of arriving in the border town of Narva. We settled on Sillamäe instead, 25km to its West, for a more reasonable distance on the saddle and a cheerier destination. The latter turned out not entirely to be the case, as it’s a town built around an oil shale reprocessing plant—a former Soviet closed city and unlike anyplace I’d been before, except in the pages of Sofi Oksanen’s Purge. It put me on the edge.