Alatskivi Castle

Baron Arved von Nolcken visited Scotland in the 1870s, saw Balmoral, and came home to build his own. Alatskivi, finished in 1885, is the result: a white castle of towers, stepped gables and turrets that looks lifted from Deeside and set down among the onion villages of the Peipsi shore. It is the most striking piece of neo-Gothic architecture in the country.

What you actually see

• The white main house - photogenic from every angle across the lawn.
• The restored interiors - the Nolcken household upstairs and the servants' world below, with an unusually complete kitchen corridor.
• The Tubin museum - a wing given to the composer Eduard Tubin, born in the parish.
• The manor park - old trees, ponds and paths down to the lake, with deer in an enclosure at the edge.

When to go

May to September has house and park fully open and the white facade at its best against green. In winter the castle under snow is the picture people come for, though the interiors run reduced hours.

Honest expectations

The interiors are restored with period furnishing rather than original contents, and the visit is not long - an hour covers the house. The exterior and the park carry the trip.

It pairs with the Onion Road rather than standing alone: come for the shore villages and the castle together.

Nearby

The Old Believer villages of Kolkja and Varnja are ten minutes east on the lake shore. Tartu is forty minutes back west.