Rakvere Castle

The castle on Vallimägi hill above Rakvere was a Danish then a Livonian Order fortress, wrecked in the wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and left as ruins. What sets it apart from every other ruined castle in Estonia is what was done with it afterwards: the shell has been fitted out as a themed medieval experience, with workshops, an alchemist's room, a torture chamber and a wine cellar.

What you actually see

Thick fragmentary walls and towers on a grassed hill, with the town spread out below. Inside the walls the rooms have been reconstructed as scenes you can walk through and handle - archery, a smithy, a bathhouse, a chapel - staffed in costume during the season.

Outside the walls stands the Tarvas, a large bronze aurochs by Tauno Kangro that has become the town's emblem and is worth the short detour on the way up.

When to go

• June to August - full programme, workshops staffed, events at weekends.
• May and September - open with a reduced programme and far fewer school groups.
• Winter - largely closed; the hill and the ruins from outside are still a good walk.

Honest expectations

This is a themed attraction built inside a ruin, not a preserved monument. If you want quiet archaeology you will find the costumes and the sound effects intrusive; if you are travelling with children it is one of the best stops in the country.

Much of the site is outdoors and uneven, and the reconstructed rooms are cellar-cold even in summer.

Nearby

Lahemaa National Park is under an hour west along the coast road. Palmse and Sagadi manors are the natural pairing on the way back to Tallinn.