Explore Estonia

“I need a new rifle,” I say to the cashier at a petrol station. Two young women look at me astonished, and I realise my mistake. The word I want is rehv, not relv, and after we’ve sorted that out, a young man says in English to follow him to a garage where they can replace a tyre. I had arrived in Elva, a little town south of Tartu, a new place to explore, starting with how to fix a flattie. No spare wheel, no jack, but a bottle of sealant and a car battery-powered air compre

I arrive down a reddish sandy track to a campsite by a reed-lined lake, smoke still issuing from an earlier fire, and with a few birch twigs and splits, a merry, crackling fire springs to life. The perfect campsite – and it was because I was later able to drive uphill out of it. After a frantic time swapping two fun-loving Estonians at one campsite with friendly Finns at another, it’s been a day of heading south, through Tartu, deep into the Devonian geology, and rolling coun

Leaving the dance events for camping in the forest, or not quite a forest - a wooded meadow or puisniit. These spaces (for camping and wandering about in my case) are clumps of trees within large areas of grass, alternatively, forested spaces mown for hay, having a parklike feel. The puisniit asks: are humans part of the ecology? The answer to Estonians is yes. Ever since the ice sheets receded some 10,000 years ago humans have followed the fish and game, the berries and mush