The Old Believers' road along Lake Peipus: a two-day route from Tartu

Who the Old Believers are, and why this shore looks like nowhere else in Estonia

Lake Peipus is the fifth-largest lake in Europe at around 3,555 km², and its western shore has been settled since the late 17th century by Russian Old Believers, families who fled persecution after the Orthodox church reforms of the 1650s and 1660s. They brought their own liturgy, their own beard-and-icon conservatism, and a way of living off fish and market gardening that shaped the villages you drive through. The houses face the road in a line, the prayer houses have no bells in the Orthodox style you expect, and the front gardens are given over to onions and cucumbers rather than lawn.

That makes this the strangest two-day drive in Estonia and the most rewarding for anyone interested in how a minority keeps itself. The route below runs Tartu to Alatskivi, along the Onion Route through Varnja, Kasepää and Kolkja, north via Nina and Kallaste to Mustvee, then to Vasknarva on the Narva river and Kauksi's sand beach, before returning. About 230 km, two days, easy tarmac all the way, with the only real difficulty being that half the interesting doors are only open when someone is at home.

Day one, 09:30 to 12:00: Alatskivi castle and Juhan Liiv

Drive northeast from Tartu about 50 km, 45 minutes, to Alatskivi, where a neo-Gothic manor built in the 1880s for Baron von Nolcken sits white and turreted in a park; the owner had seen Balmoral in Scotland and wanted the same silhouette in Estonia. Entry is roughly €8-12, the restored interiors take 45 minutes, and there is a café in the basement. In summer the park and its lakes are free to walk, and the whole place is unexpectedly complete for a country manor that spent decades as a Soviet school.

A few kilometres away, the Juhan Liiv museum occupies the smallholding where the poet grew up, and it is worth 30 minutes for anyone who wants to understand why Estonians treat Liiv the way the Irish treat Yeats: entry is a few euros and the setting, a low farmhouse in fields, is the exhibit. Then head east to the lake, 15 minutes, and the moment you hit the shore road the architecture changes. This is where the trip properly begins, so keep the morning tight to arrive hungry.

Day one, 12:30 to 15:00: the Onion Route and a fish lunch in Kolkja

The villages of Varnja, Kasepää and Kolkja run into each other along the shore for about 10 km, which locals and signage call the Onion Route. Kolkja has the Old Believers' museum, small, unfussy and staffed by people from the community, with icons, brass crosses, prayer books in Church Slavonic and photographs of the fishing fleet; a few euros, 40 minutes. Kolkja's other institution is the fish and onion restaurant, which serves sibulakala, the local dish of baked fish layered with onions, plus fish soup and dark bread, for roughly €15-22 a head.

Book that lunch by phone in advance if you can; it is a small kitchen in a village of a few hundred people and coach groups do arrive. Afterwards, walk the shore lane and look at the boats. Then buy onions: braids and sacks are sold from front gates and roadside tables in late summer for a few euros, along with cucumbers, garlic, dried fish and sometimes chicory coffee. Bring cash, because a garden gate does not take cards, and expect the seller to speak Russian first and Estonian second.

Day one, 15:00 to 18:00: Nina, the Kallaste cliffs and Mustvee

Nina, just north of Kolkja, has a red-brick church on the shore, a small boat harbour and a view across water so wide that on a hazy day you see no far bank at all; twenty minutes. Then Kallaste, a small lakeside town whose claim is the sandstone cliffs on the shore, red-brown Devonian rock up to 8-11 m high with sand martins nesting in holes and a beach below. It is free, ten minutes off the main road, and it is the best swimming and sunbathing stop on the southern half of the route in July, when the lake reaches 20-23°C.

Continue 30 km north to Mustvee, a town of about 1,200 where the confessional mix becomes visible in the most direct way possible: Orthodox, Old Believer, Lutheran and Baptist places of worship within a few hundred metres of each other on the same street. Walk it in 30 minutes. Mustvee also has a harbour, a beach and the small shops and a supermarket you will not find in the villages, so stock up here for the evening if you are heading further north where services thin out fast.

Where to sleep on night one: village guesthouse or Kauksi pines

Two very different nights. Along the southern shore between Varnja and Kallaste, small guesthouses and farm rooms in Old Believer villages go for roughly €45-75 for a double, often in a house where the family lives at the other end, breakfast negotiable, and sometimes with a wood sauna for €20-30. It is the authentic version and the cheapest, but expect self-catering, no restaurant after 19:00 and rooms that were furnished decades ago. Choose it if the point of your trip is the community rather than the comfort.

The alternative is the north shore at Kauksi, Uusküla or Alajõe, where pine forest meets a genuinely wide sand beach and the accommodation is holiday houses, campsites and small hotels at about €60-110 for two, more in the last three weeks of July when Estonian families take the beach seriously. Some places rent whole cottages at €120-180 for four to six people, which is the best value if you are a group. If your day two heads towards Vasknarva and Ida-Virumaa, this is the logical place to wake up.

Day two, 09:00 to 12:30: Vasknarva, the river source and Alajõe

Drive to Vasknarva, at the northeastern corner of the lake where the Narva river begins its run to the Gulf of Finland. Here the fragmentary ruin of a 14th-century Livonian Order castle stands on the bank, mostly a single wall now, and beside it an Orthodox church and a village that feels like the end of a road because it is. The far bank is Russia; the border runs down the river. Look, photograph the church and the castle wall, and do not go near the water's edge with a drone or attempt anything clever.

Border-guard vehicles are a normal sight along this stretch and you should carry your passport or ID card in the car anywhere within a few kilometres of the frontier. Coming back west, Alajõe has a striking wooden Orthodox church and a long shallow beach, and the road between Vasknarva and Kauksi runs through pine forest and small settlements with fish smokers behind the houses. Roadside stalls sell hot-smoked bream and pike-perch for around €8-15 a kilo, which is the best-value food purchase on the whole route.

Day two, 12:30 to 17:00: Kauksi beach, and how to end the trip

Kauksi is the reason Estonians drive three hours to Peipus: several kilometres of pale sand backed by dunes and pine, shallow water that warms faster than the Baltic, and a beach wide enough that even in high summer you can find 50 m of your own. There is a visitor point, a campsite, kiosks in July and a nature trail through the dunes. Give it three hours in good weather. It is also the correct swim stop for children, because the shelf is gradual and there is no current worth worrying about on a calm day.

Then pick your ending. Back to Tartu is about 110 km and 1h30, mostly on good road, which makes this a clean two-day loop. Or turn northeast: Jõhvi is 55 km away and Narva 90 km, so this route joins neatly onto an Ida-Virumaa industrial trip if you want four days in eastern Estonia. Third option, and my choice in September: cut inland to the Kurtna lake district, over 40 lakes in a small area of pine forest and eskers, and walk for an hour before driving home.

Season, etiquette and what to skip

July and August give you swimming, onions, open museums and roadside fish. May and September give you empty beaches and the risk that village museums are shut, so phone ahead. April brings the smelt run, when nets and small boats appear along the shore and the fried fish is at its best. Winter is genuinely interesting: ice fishing huts appear on the lake and the villages are silent, but many guesthouses close and there are no ice roads across the border to consider. Avoid mid-week visits in late autumn, when everything is closed at once.

Etiquette matters more here than in Tallinn. Old Believer prayer houses are working religious buildings for a conservative community: do not walk in and photograph, ask first, cover shoulders, and accept a refusal without argument. Russian is the everyday language along the shore and a few words go a long way; younger people generally have Estonian and often English. Skip Piirissaar island unless you have a spare day, since the boat from Laaksaare is slow and weather-dependent. And skip the temptation to drive the whole shore in one day; you will see villages and learn nothing.