{"id":26811,"date":"2017-02-04T09:00:16","date_gmt":"2017-02-04T07:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/?p=26811"},"modified":"2017-01-31T10:52:12","modified_gmt":"2017-01-31T08:52:12","slug":"otepaa-estonias-winter-capital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/otepaa-estonias-winter-capital\/","title":{"rendered":"Otep\u00e4\u00e4, Estonia\u2019s Winter Capital"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span class=\"s1\">It\u2019s worth a trip outside of Tallinn to Otep\u00e4\u00e4 and its neighbouring village, P\u00fchaj\u00e4rve in the very southeastern corner of Estonia.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\"><b>Otep\u00e4\u00e4 is a picture-postcard<\/b><\/span><span class=\"s1\"> little village with lovely walking routes all around, and a deep, dense forest in which to be lost with your thoughts. However the attention-grabber for most tourists is Vaike Munam\u00e4gi, the second tallest hill in Estonia. The tallest, Suur Manam\u00e4gi is located about an hour\u2019s drive south from Otep\u00e4\u00e4. Whether you\u2019re an experienced skier looking for some piste action in the Baltics, or a newbie wanting a hill that isn\u2019t the Black Run on which to learn your craft, there\u2019s a reason to visit the two Egg Hills, as they are known in English. And even if winter sports are not your thing, south Estonia\u2019s flatness means you can see for miles all around when you\u2019re at the top. If you want a bit of a challenge, have a go at the Kekkose Ski Trail (a 14 km run named in honour of the visit, from the then Finnish president Urho Kekkose\u2019s visit to K\u00e4\u00e4riku to ski), one of the country\u2019s most challenging cross-country trails.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">Stay in the P\u00fchaj\u00e4rve Spa Hotel, a three-star destination which overlooks the enormous lake, which of course is completely frozen in winter. The spa\u2019s caf\u00e9 gives truly spectacular panoramic views of the lake, the hills and surrounds. Ensconced in your forest kingdom, you\u2019ll finally be able to forget all your daily working troubles. The food is pretty decent local fare, and certainly fills you up before or after a long day\u2019s strolling in the gorgeous countryside. There is a pub down below for simpler tastes and an a la carte restaurant on the main floor of the former manor house.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">The spa\u2019s jewel is the outstanding swimming pool designed by one of Estonia\u2019s master architects Andres Alver. The pool\u2019s main structure is engineered wood glulam complemented with the use of locally produced birch plywood. Swimming there is certainly a must on any Estonian travel bucket list.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s4\"><b>How to get there:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\"><span class=\"s1\">We recommend taking a car, although it\u2019s perfectly possible to go there by bus &#8211; just jump on the Tallinn to Tartu express, then take a connecting service to Otep\u00e4\u00e4. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tpilet.ee\">www.tpilet.ee<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p7\"><span class=\"s1\">There are train connections from Tallinn-Tartu-Palupera. Palupera is about 20 km from Otep\u00e4\u00e4 and from there you can take a taxi which should be no more than \u20ac20. Please note: most taxis do not accept card payment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p7\"><span class=\"s1\">Train tickets: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elron.ee\">www.elron.ee<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p7\">Otep\u00e4\u00e4 Taxi: 1200<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u00a0TEXT KRISTINA LUPP, STUART GARLICK, PHOTOS ANDREI CHERTKOV<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s worth a trip outside of Tallinn to Otep\u00e4\u00e4 and its neighbouring village, P\u00fchaj\u00e4rve in the very southeastern corner of &hellip; <span class=\"read-more-excerpt\">Read more<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":26812,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[45,47,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nature","category-culture","category-estonia"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balticguide.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}