Smoke sauna and the south
The Võromaa smoke sauna is on the UNESCO intangible heritage list: heated for half a day, no chimney, used as much for healing as for washing. Half an hour east, the Seto keep their own kingdom and their own polyphonic singing tradition. On Lake Peipus, Russian Old Believers grow onions in long red barns.
The route.
- By car
- By train
Day by day.
Daylight is shown for a departure on 26 October, calculated for each day's own location. Ask us and we will run the figures for your dates.
South to the university town
Pick-up at TLL. Train south to Tartu (2 h, comfortable, with intercity coffee). Afternoon walk through the university town: the Swedish-era university of 1632, the leaning town hall square. Visit the Estonian National Museum, built into a former Soviet airfield.
Read the full day
Tartu is where Estonia thinks. The university was founded by Gustavus Adolphus in 1632 and the town has been arguing with itself ever since. The National Museum is the surprise: a long glass wedge that rises out of the runway of a Soviet military airfield, deliberately pointing down the old flight line, holding the fullest account of Finno-Ugric life anywhere.
- TLL to Tartu by train
- University town walk
- Estonian National Museum
Hotel Lydia
A small city-centre hotel five minutes from the town hall square.
Held, not booked, until your deposit clears. If it is gone by then we substitute an equal or better hotel and tell you first.
Old Believers and onion barns
East to Lake Peipus (60 km). Visit a Russian Old Believer village at Kallaste: long red onion barns lining the lake. A long lunch with the Maltsev family: onion and fish stew, rye bread, kvass. South to Värska in Setomaa for the night.
Read the full day
Lake Peipus is the fifth largest lake in Europe and the Russian border runs down the middle of it. The Estonian shore is a thirty-kilometre ribbon of Old Believer villages: one street, one row of houses, and behind each house a long barn where the onions dry. They have farmed this strip since the 1700s, kept the old liturgy, and turned onion-growing into something close to an identity. Lunch takes two hours and nobody hurries you.
- Drive to Lake Peipus
- Old Believer village walk
- Onion-barn lunch with the Maltsevs
- On to Värska
Hirvemäe, Värska
A converted 1930s rural guesthouse on the edge of Värska, family-run since 1998.
Held, not booked, until your deposit clears. If it is gone by then we substitute an equal or better hotel and tell you first.
The Seto kingdom
A morning with a Seto Kingdom Day singer at her village house: a demonstration of leelo polyphonic singing in the garden. Visit the Seto farm museum. In the afternoon, drive west to a farmhouse at Mooska for two nights.
Read the full day
Leelo is sung by women, in two parts, with a lead voice and a chorus that comes in underneath and holds. It is loud, close-harmony and slightly unnerving at a range of two metres, and it was inscribed by UNESCO in 2009. Once a year the Seto elect a regent, the ülemsootska, who stands in for a king said to be sleeping under a hill. This is presented entirely without irony and it is the better for it.
- Leelo polyphonic singing demonstration
- Seto farm museum
- Drive to Mooska
The smoke sauna
A quiet day on the farm. In the morning you help Aare heat the sauna (it takes seven hours and three armfuls of birch). Late lunch on the veranda. In the evening, the UNESCO smoke sauna ceremony: three rounds, sweet birch whisks, a cold plunge between each. Late farmhouse dinner.
Read the full day
A smoke sauna has no chimney. You light the stove in the morning, the smoke fills the room and blackens the walls all day, and at dusk you clear the embers, air it out, wipe the benches and go in. The heat is soft and the air smells of birch and soot. Eda leads the rounds: a whisking, a rest, a plunge, repeated three times, with herbs and honey and nothing rushed. It is a healing ritual first and a wash second, and it is treated that way.
- The morning of heating the sauna
- Three rounds with birch whisks
- The cold plunge
- Late farmhouse dinner
Mooska Farm
Second night at Mooska.
Held, not booked, until your deposit clears. If it is gone by then we substitute an equal or better hotel and tell you first.
North at an easy pace
A late breakfast on the farm. North through the Otepää highlands, with a stop at Suur Munamägi, Estonia's highest point at 318 m, with its small wooden tower. Train from Tartu back to Tallinn, evening departures.
- Late breakfast at Mooska
- Otepää highlands and Suur Munamägi
- Train to Tallinn
Request your quote.
Tell us your dates and party size. We'll reply within one working day, with a private, fully-costed version of Smoke sauna and the south to follow within two.
within two working days
Prices shown in USD for reference. You're billed in EUR.
- Private trip: just your party, your pace
- Flexible dates, year-round departures
- No payment taken to enquire
- A $503 pp deposit holds your dates
- Protected under the EU Package Travel Directive
Priced by party size.
- Per person
- $2,796(≈ €2,390)
- Total for 2
- $5,593(≈ €4,780)
- Deposit to book
- $1,006(≈ €860)
- Balance, 45 days out
- $4,586(≈ €3,920)
Calculated from the same per-person rates as the table below. Final pricing is confirmed with your quote and moves with your dates, room choices and any day you change. Billed in EUR.
Per-person rates by party size
Prices shown in USD for reference. You're billed in EUR.
What's included.
- 4 nights in total (Tartu 1, Värska/Setomaa 1, Mooska farmhouse 2)
- A cultural historian as your guide on four of the days
- UNESCO smoke sauna ceremony with Eda and Aare at Mooska
- A meeting with a Setomaa Kingdom Day singer and a leelo polyphonic singing demonstration
- Old Believer village on Lake Peipus and a long onion-barn lunch
- Tartu university town walk and the Estonian National Museum
- Return train Tallinn to Tartu (2 h, comfortable); coach onward to the south
- Welcome dinner; daily breakfast
- International travel to Tallinn (TLL or the ferry from Helsinki)
- Most lunches and two dinners
- Travel insurance (mandatory)
- Tips for your guide (suggested €10 per day per traveller)
- A birch whisk from the sauna to take home (€15, optional)
