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 across a lawn, photogenic from every angle, with a restored interior covering the Nolcken household upstairs and the servants' world below - the kitchen corridor arrangement is unusually complete. One wing holds a small museum to the composer Eduard Tubin, born in the parish.

The manor park runs down to a lake, with old trees, ponds and walking paths, and deer in an enclosure at the edge.

When to go

• May to September - house and park fully open, the white facade at its best against green.
• Winter - the castle under snow is the Balmoral picture; 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.