The Tallinn driving route: 3 days along the north coast
Coastal road curving past limestone cliffs in Lahemaa National Park
A 340-kilometre loop east from Tallinn to Narva and back, with 12 concrete stops, honest drive times and a hotel at the end of each day.
Renting the car and getting out of town
Pick up at Tallinn airport, not the city — the airport Sixt, Europcar and Hertz desks are all in the arrivals hall and a compact runs 38 to 55 EUR a day with unlimited kilometres. City pickup adds a 25 EUR fee and a hunt for a legal parking spot. Take the E20 (Tallinn-Narva highway) east; it is a proper two-lane divided road for the first 45 km, then narrows. Speed limits are 90 km/h open road, 110 km/h on the marked stretches, 50 km/h in villages. Estonian police enforce with unmarked cars.
Fill up before you leave — Alexela and Circle K at Peterburi tee are cheapest, around 1.65 EUR a litre for 95. You will not find a cheaper station east of Kadrina. Winter tyres are mandatory from December 1 to March 1 and every rental will have them, but between mid-October and late April carry a scraper and expect 20% longer drive times on a snowy day. Coffee at the Circle K is drinkable, the pastry is not — wait for Kadrina.
Day 1 morning: Jagala and Lahemaa west
First stop 30 km east: Jagala waterfall, signposted off the E20, 8 metres tall and 50 metres wide — the largest natural falls in Estonia. Free, 15 minutes on foot, park in the marked lot. From here take road 85 north into Lahemaa National Park. Palmse manor at kilometre 78 is the restored 1697 baroque house of the Baltic-German von der Pahlen family; 10 EUR gets you the house, distillery and grounds, budget 90 minutes.
Lunch at Vihula Manor on the same road, 15 minutes further — the restaurant Ammende does a 24 EUR two-course set until 15:00, elk pate and pike-perch. If you are moving fast, skip the manor lunch and eat at Viitna Korts on the E20 instead: a proper roadside inn since the 1780s, pea soup and pork with sauerkraut for 14 EUR, always busy with truckers which is the sign you want. Back on road 85 by 15:00.
Day 1 afternoon: Kasmu and sleeping in Lahemaa
Detour north to Kasmu, the old "captains' village". Ninety-two sea captains lived here in the 1920s; their painted timber houses still line one street. The Kasmu Maritime Museum is a private one-room affair, 5 EUR, run by Aarne Vaik who will talk to you as long as you have questions. Walk 20 minutes along the boulder-strewn coast to the erratics field — glacial rocks the size of cars dumped 12,000 years ago. This is the quietest and best hour of the whole coast.
Sleep at Vihula Manor Country Club (135 to 190 EUR, spa, 34 rooms across the estate) or, cheaper, at Toomarahva Turismitalu in Altja village — a family farm with six rooms in restored fishing sheds, 75 EUR with breakfast, wood sauna 25 EUR extra. Altja itself is a preserved 19th-century fishing hamlet with net-drying racks along the beach; dinner at Altja Korts, 18 EUR for smoked Baltic herring and boiled potatoes. Total driving day one: 130 km, roughly 2.5 hours behind the wheel.
Day 2: Ontika cliffs, Sillamae and on to Narva
Rejoin the E20 at Viitna and drive east. The Ontika limestone cliff — the Baltic Klint — runs 20 km along the coast east of Toila; the viewpoint at Valaste is 56 metres straight down to the sea, the highest point of the whole 1,200 km klint. New viewing tower opened 2020, free, wheelchair accessible. Twenty minutes further, Sillamae is the surprise of the trip: a closed Soviet uranium-processing town until 1991, now with a Stalinist-classical town centre around Kesk valjak that looks lifted from a 1953 architecture textbook.
Lunch at Krunk on Kesk 23 (12 EUR, Georgian-Russian menu, khachapuri worth the stop) then push on to Narva, 35 km further. Narva castle sits on the Estonian bank of the Narva river; Ivangorod fortress sits on the Russian bank 150 metres away. You cannot cross the border as a tourist but you can walk the promenade and photograph both. Hermann castle museum, 8 EUR, gives you the tower climb and the medieval kitchen restoration; allow two hours. Sleep at Hotel Narva on Puskini 6, 75 EUR, or the newer Hotel Inger at 90 EUR.
Day 3: the return via Rakvere
Do not rush back. Leave Narva by 09:30, drive 55 km west to Kohtla-Nomme and the Estonian Mining Museum — the country's oil-shale industry, still active, employs 6,000 people and the museum takes you 8 metres underground into a real 1937 mine shaft, 15 EUR, English tour at 11:00 daily. This is heavier and more interesting than the Seaplane Harbour and you will be the only tourists there in winter. Ninety minutes on site.
Push on 60 km to Rakvere. The castle ruin on the hill is a knight-themed park in summer (torture chamber, archery, 14 EUR) and free ruins in winter. Lunch at Katarina Kelder on Pikk 3, cellar restaurant, 16 EUR for wild boar stew. Back on the E20 by 15:30, Tallinn by 17:00. Return the car with a full tank at the airport station on Kaskede pst, 1.62 EUR a litre, then tram 4 back into town. Total loop: 340 km, roughly 6 hours of driving over three days.
What the drive actually costs
Rental compact three days: 130 EUR. Fuel for 340 km at 6.5 litres per 100 km and 1.65 EUR/litre: 37 EUR. Tolls: zero, Estonia has no road tolls. Parking: also zero outside Tallinn city centre — every stop above has free lots. So the car itself runs about 170 EUR for three days, or 57 EUR a day, which for a two-person trip beats two return train tickets to Narva (44 EUR) plus taxis to Lahemaa (impossible without a car).
Add roughly 240 EUR of accommodation (one night Lahemaa mid-range, one night Narva mid-range) and 180 EUR of food and museum tickets for two and the whole three-day loop lands around 590 EUR for two people. That is genuinely cheap for what you see. The one add-on worth it: winter tyre confirmation in writing on the rental contract, and a second driver added free at Sixt and Europcar if you ask at the desk (some agents will try to charge 8 EUR a day — push back).
Skip these tempting detours
Skip Toila spa hotel unless you specifically want a Soviet-era sanatorium experience. The 1990s renovation has aged badly and the 95 EUR room rate buys better nights at Vihula. Skip the Sillamae museum — 5 EUR for a room of Soviet-era ceramics, not worth the 45 minutes. And skip any detour to Kohtla-Jarve town centre; the industrial outskirts are the point of the region and the centre is a tired 1970s grid with nothing to look at.
Do not attempt the whole loop in a single day. I have seen people try — Tallinn to Narva and back in 12 hours — and they arrive at the castle at 15:00, get 40 minutes inside, and drive the E20 home in the dark. You miss Lahemaa, you miss Ontika, you miss Sillamae, and you have driven 420 km to see one castle. Two nights out is the minimum. Three, with Kasmu and Rakvere, is what makes the drive worth renting the car for.
Before you book
The questions people ask about Rakvere, answered with this month’s numbers.
No. Estonian roads are ploughed and salted efficiently and any front-wheel-drive compact with the mandatory winter tyres handles the E20 and side roads. In heavy snow the smaller Lahemaa roads to Kasmu can be slow — figure 40 km/h — but they are always passable. Avoid unpaved forest tracks after November.
Partly. Lux Express and Sebe run frequent Tallinn-Narva buses (3.5 hours, 13 EUR) that stop at Rakvere and Johvi. But Lahemaa villages, Kasmu, Ontika viewpoint, Kohtla-Nomme mine — none are reachable by public transport in any reasonable way. If you cannot drive, book a small-group Lahemaa day tour instead, around 75 EUR per person from Tallinn.
You can walk the Narva promenade and photograph Ivangorod fortress freely — thousands do every summer. Do not walk onto the pedestrian bridge itself unless you have a valid Russian visa and want to actually cross, and expect a passport check on the Estonian side even if you turn back. Since 2022 the border regime is stricter but tourism on the Estonian bank is normal.
Late May through mid-September for daylight and open manor houses. Palmse and Vihula run reduced winter hours (weekends only, November to March). The cliffs and Kasmu are dramatic year-round; September brings the best light and the fewest cars on the E20. Avoid the last week of July when Estonians take their own holidays and the Lahemaa hotels fill.
