Võsu is a seaside village in Lahemaa National Park where a long sandy beach, a pine forest and a few wooden villas make up the best of the Estonian summer. The beach is broad and shallow, the water warms up slowly, and in July the place fills with families from Tallinn and Tartu, who come to spend a week or two in their summer houses or in guesthouses along the shore. Reed beds line the nearby river mouth, and the sunsets over the Gulf of Finland are long and gentle.
Behind the beach, the village has a small centre with a handful of shops and cafés and a pleasing collection of old wooden houses with carved verandas, painted in dark red, yellow and green. Many were built in the early twentieth century as summer residences for city people, and the carved trim is a reminder of how the Baltic coast was once a fashionable retreat. The pine forest behind the dunes is full of paths, and in autumn it is full of mushroom hunters, an Estonian passion that borders on the obsessive.
The riding here is gentle and flat. Roads through the park run between woodland, fields and coastal meadows, with long straight stretches and a handful of bends, and they are quiet outside the holiday season. A short ride east or west brings you to some of the park's best sights. Palmse and Sagadi manors, a few kilometres inland, are among the finest in Estonia, and the fishing village of Altja has thatched net sheds, a swing and a small tavern right at the water's edge. The coastal road to Käsmu is a particularly pretty drive. Be prepared for gravel on some of the smaller roads and for sudden fog on cool mornings.
There is no big fuel stop in Võsu, so Loksa, about thirteen kilometres away, is the sensible place to fill the tank, and Rakvere farther inland has larger shops. The village has a few places to eat, serving fried fish, smoked salmon and rye bread. In midsummer, locals light bonfires on the beach for Jaanipäev, the Midsummer festival, and the whole coast glows.
Come in late June or early July for the long light, or in September for empty beaches and mist.