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Southern Estonia

With rolling hills, picturesque lakes and vast woodlands, the southeast boasts some of Estonia’s most attractive countryside. It also contains one of Estonia’s most important cities, the vibrant university centre of Tartu.

No matter which direction you head from Tartu, you’ll find resplendent natural settings. In the south lie the towns of Otepää and Võru, the gateway to outdoor adventuring: hiking and lake-swimming in summer and cross-country skiing in winter. Quaint towns set on wandering rivers or in picturesque valleys add to the allure. For a serious dose of woodland, head to the crisp lakes and gently rolling hills of Haanja Nature Park or Karula National Park.

To the east stretches Lake Peipsi, one of Europe’s largest lakes. Along its shores are beautiful sandy beaches and a surprisingly undeveloped coastline. Aside from swimming, boating, fishing and soaking up the scenery, you can travel up its western rim stopping at roadside food stands and in tiny villages.

One of Estonia’s most intriguing regions is also among its least visited. In the far southeast, clustered in villages near Lake Pihkva, live the Setos, descendents of Balto-Finnic tribes who settled here in the first millennium.

If you plan only to dip into the region, then you’ll be fine getting around by bus. For more in-depth exploring – particularly around Haanja Nature Park, Setomaa and Lake Peipsi – services are infrequent and you’ll save loads of time by renting a car.

Top attractions

These are our favorite local haunts, touristy spots, and hidden gems throughout Southern Estonia.

  • See

    University of Tartu Museum

    Atop Toomemägi are the ruins of a Gothic cathedral, built in the 13th century by the knights of the Livonian Order after driving the pagan Estonians from this natural defensive formation. It was substantially rebuilt in the 15th century, despoiled during the Reformation in 1525, used as a barn, and partly rebuilt between 1804 and 1809 to house the university library, and is now a museum. Inside there are a range of interesting exhibits chronicling student life. Start by taking the historic 1920s lift to the top and working your way down. Morgenstern Hall retains the appearance of the historic library and is lined with statues of the Ancient Greek muses. Kids will love the Cabinet of the Crazy Scientist, where they take part in some hands-on science themselves. Other highlights include the beautiful White Hall and the Treasury, which houses eclectic items such as the death mask of Russian poet Aleksandr Pushkin, a 1504 Dürer print, a human hand once used for anatomy lessons and a set of elaborate cheat-sheet scrolls extracted from students in the 1980s. From May to September the museum ticket also includes entrance to the viewing platform on top of the cathedral tower.

  • See

    Estonian Print & Paper Museum

    A treat for word nerds, design hounds and print junkies alike, this interactive museum focuses on the history of printing and paper-making. Machinery from across the ages is on permanent display, and there's a gallery with rotating exhibitions plus a small selection of handmade notebooks for sale. Tickets include an hour-long tour in English by the lovely museum director, Lemmit, complete with demonstrations and the opportunity to make your own paper or prints on one of the antique presses. Workshops on making your own notebooks, paper and postcards, and classic printmaking techniques are also on offer (from €6.60, book in advance). You might also catch visiting artists at work in the attached studio.

  • See

    Estonian National Museum

    This immense, low-slung, glass-clad building is arresting – both Estonians and architecture lovers purred when it opened in late 2016. The permanent exhibition 'Encounters' covers national prehistory and history in some detail, paying plenty of attention to the period of Soviet occupations (fittingly – the museum is built over a former Soviet airstrip). Below ground, the wonderful 'Echo of the Urals' exhibition gives an overview of the various peoples making up the Finno-Ugric language family, and there's a hall for its wonderful temporary exhibitions. The museum is in the grounds of Raadi Manor, which held the original national museum many years ago.

  • See

    Tartu Old Observatory

    Built as part of Tartu University in 1810, this intriguing observatory on Toomemägi is a must for fans of astronomy and the history of scientific discovery. The sober, studious-looking facility, topped with a moving observational tower, houses some of the most famous artefacts of 19th-century astronomy, all displayed in perfect order. You can climb the tower, where a huge Zeiss Refractor remains in place; there's a basement exhibition on seismology; and interactive-learning displays await in the Western Hall. Tartu was for many years one of the world's leading observatories. Its first luminary, Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve, installed the 9-inch Fraunhofer Refractor, then the world's largest telescope, here, plus other cutting-edge instruments with which he (amongst other things): measured the Struve Geodetic Arc that allowed accurate measurements of the earth; discovered over 3000 stars; and was the first person to measure the distance to a particular star. The Refractor, all gleaming brass, polished wood and immaculate engineering, is just one of many beautiful and significant instruments here on display. You can also see Struve's Geodetic Arc measurements, less visually-arresting, but listed by Unesco for their immense contribution to human knowledge.

  • See

    Tartu Art Museum

    If you've been socialising in Tartu's pubs and can't really see straight, don’t use this building to anchor your eye. Subsidence caused by the nearby Emajõgi River gives the 1793 structure – former home of an exiled Scot who distinguished himself in the Russian army – a queasy lean of 5.8°, which is more than the Tower of Pisa. It's now an engrossing gallery of Estonian and Baltic art, spread over three levels (tickets are slightly cheaper if you're visiting only one). Paintings comprise the bulk of the permanent collection, along with some sculpture, photography, video art and mixed-media work, including some truly wonderful 20th-century portraiture. Dominated by the modern works of Estonian and Baltic painters, its 4000+ collection is the country's second-largest.

  • See

    KGB Cells Museum

    This former KGB headquarters and prison, known as the ‘Grey House’, was donated to Tartu City Museum by the family to which they were returned after the Soviet era. Chilling in parts, the museum has created a highly worthwhile exhibition covering deportations, life in the gulags, the Estonian resistance, and what went on here. Guided tours are €20 extra. Temporary exhibitions visit, and occasional 'Dark Nights' show how terrifying the cells could be.

  • See

    Aparaaditehas

    Aparaaditehas (the Widget Factory) is an old 14,000-sq-metre Soviet-era industrial complex where refrigeration equipment and secret submarine parts were made alongside umbrellas and zips that didn't work, to fool the public. Now it's Tartu's hippest dining, drinking, shopping and cultural hub – smaller kin to Tallinn's Telliskivi Creative City. Broad painted stripes evoke its industrial past, while stencils and graffiti adorn its present.

  • See

    Tartu University

    Fronted by six Doric columns, the impressive main building of Tartu University was built between 1803 and 1809. The university itself was founded in 1632 by the Swedish king Gustaf II Adolf (Gustavus Adolphus) to train Lutheran clergy and government officials. Modelled on Uppsala University in Sweden, its principal campus and the site of its historic buildings lies behind this neoclassical pile, among the trees and winding paths of lovely Toomemägi. The university closed in 1710 during the Great Northern War but reopened in 1802, later becoming one of the Russian empire’s foremost centres of learning. Its early emphasis on science is evidenced by the great scholars who worked here in the 19th century, including physical chemistry pioneer and Nobel prize winner for chemistry, Wilhelm Ostwald; physicist Heinrich Lenz; pioneering astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve; and the founder of embryology, natural scientist Karl Ernst von Baer.

  • See

    Tartu Toy Museum

    A big hit with the under-eight crowd (and you won’t see too many adults anxious to leave), this is a great place to while away a few rainy hours. Set in one of the best-preserved late-18th-century buildings in the area, this excellent museum showcases dolls, model trains, rocking horses, toy soldiers and tons of other desirables. It's all geared to be nicely interactive, with exhibits in pull-out drawers and a kids' playroom (open 10am to 4pm). The adjacent courtyard house is home to characters and props from Estonian animated films and TV shows. Also included in the admission price is the small museum in the basement of the Theatre House, two doors up on the corner, showcasing theatre puppets.