Tallinn from above, sandy Pärnu

In the morning we carried on in Tallinn, driving to Kadriorg Park with its beautiful art museum building. We didn’t go inside — we’d had our fill of interiors. We enjoyed the adjoining garden and ambled over to the Presidential Palace.

There’s a guard out front — no surprises there — but right outside the palace they keep honeybees. And perhaps so the bees have plenty to work with, the surrounding gardens are full of flowers. The roses smell unreal; photos simply cannot capture it.

Next up: the TV tower — 314 metres tall with a viewing platform at 170. Originally built to boost signal for the 1980 Moscow Olympics. From up there, the city looks astonishingly green, with the sea adding colour. The boys took a VR ride around the tower. Estonia is famously tech-forward, and it shows — they know how to use it, and they’ve designed location-specific experiences.

Then on to Pärnu, a little town with a glorious sandy beach. Check-in was slick: an SMS with a code to punch into the door unit. The room even has a sauna — but I think I’ll pass this time.

We walked through the centre (nice parks, a few churches scattered about), though the town’s real thing is promenades and restaurants — it presumably comes alive in the evening (we have no plans to verify).

After the walk we finally headed to the beach. Sand as far as the eye can see, and equally endless shallow water — after ten minutes of wading, we still hadn’t found a depth that reached our waists. Not a cold-plunge swim this time, and there were actually other people about. The weather was just right: a little wind, not too hot. Properly pleasant.

After the swim we carried on along the water to a lookout nestled in the local flora and fauna — a “coastal meadow” with marshes, a glimpse into the ecosystem. They’ve built a boardwalk, and remarkably, not a single mosquito.