Abandoned Beauties of Lahemaa National Park, Estonia

On the first day of our road trip honeymoon through the Baltics (after leaving Tallinn, that is), David and I had quite a day planned –  heading first to Lahemaa National Park, then on to Haapsalu before ending up A frame camping on Saaremaa.

Lahemaa National Park, about 90 minutes east of Tallinn, is known for its natural beauty, which was actually of secondary interest to David and myself.  We were there primarily to see some abandoned structures – Kolga Manor and the Hara Submarine Pen.

I first learned about the latter while cruising around Atlas Obscura (a GREAT travel resource if you’re into the same kinds of weird shit I am – I use it to help plan every vacation David and I take), looking for potential places to see on our trip.  When I happened upon the abandoned sub base, it seemed too good to be true.  David was a navy submariner in a past life (ok, from 2001-2005), and is keen on naval history.  And I like to explore abandoned Soviet places, so it hit both of those marks!

I also knew a bit about the numerous old manor houses in the Baltics.  My understanding of them is that they were occupied up until Soviet occupation, when many fell into disuse due to their being rather overt displays of consumption and capitalism.  Then, once the Soviet regime fell and the Baltic states regained independence, there weren’t folks with the means to maintain them – thus many of them remain in varying states of disrepair.

It was a rainy morning in Tallinn when we picked up our rental car (who we lovingly nicknamed Carmen) and headed east.  It was an easy drive, and we arrived to Kolga Manor within about 90 minutes.  The grounds were fairly spectacular, and we were the only folks there.  We spent around half and hour wandering around, taking pictures, and even exploring an unlocked building – what I think may have been a souvenir shop at some point?  I’m not sure, but the grounds were beautiful, and it was fascinating to see this huge property with unused buildings being left mostly to rot.

There are options at Kolga Manor to go inside and take a tour – the fee is 16 EUR for an hour tour (for however many people in your party, the price is the same).  If we hadn’t been on such a compressed time frame, it would have been great to take part in, but we had to move on to the submarine base!  If you have any questions, Ulvi was a great help, and volunteers for the musem (attached to the manor) and can be reached via email at kolga.muuseum@kuusalu.ee.

Now, the submarine base was legitimately hard to find.  We had a GPS device, and I knew roughly where it was on the map, but had no address (as the site is technically off limits to civilians).  So I entered a point on the map, and managed to dead reckon us to the site – conveniently only about 15 minutes drive from Kolga.

David and I have talked at length about highlights of the Baltic portion of our honeymoon, and while our accounts differ for the most part, the Hara Submarine Pen is solidly on both of our top three highlights of the region.  Again, we were the only folks there, and we were free to explore.  The weather was gloomy, which only added to the eerie feelings of being in this place.  In fact, just as we were finishing up exploring, thunder clouds rolled in and we had to sprint back to Carmen to avoid getting drenched by a sudden downpour.

From there, we proceeded on to Haapsalu (where we were plagued by hanger — hunger+anger), and then onto Saaremaa.  It made for a harried, yet ultra productive start to our Baltic Road Trip.

---

Practically speaking, it’s easy to get to Lahemaa if you have a car and a GPS.  While I didn’t have the GPS skills to find either of the places in the GPS specifically, getting directions to Kolga town will put you smack next to the manor.  Getting to the sub pen is more difficult, but if you dead reckon to the general area of the place on a map, turn down a restricted road (very official looking – not a mere private property sign), you shouldn’t have too many problems finding it.

Alternatively, Tallinn Traveller Tours has a day trip to Lahemaa National Park that stops at the sub pen and two manor houses (not Kolga, but two others).  It looks like a fabulous tour and I received many great recommendations from the folks there about places to see both in Lahemaa, but also in Tallinn proper.

Are you into seeing offbeat places when you travel?  Do you like urbex?  Would you visit these places?  Let me know in the comments!