Summer in Pärnu, Estonia´s beach capital
- Laura O
- Feb 28
- 4 min read
Now that the sun has started to show itself again in the northern hemisphere, we can start thinking about holidays next summer. This post was inspired by a trip we made last year. I hope you enjoy it and get in the travel mood with it!
Like many people from Helsinki or nearby, we usually go at least once a year to Estonia, because it´s only a short two-hour boat trip to the other side of the Gulf of Finland. Many people just go there for a day trip, which is a nice way to explore Tallinn old town and other areas, maybe do some shopping, but we decided this time to head for Pärnu, which is a coastal town 1,5 hours drive away from Tallinn. It was summer so we wanted to see the famous long sandy beach of Pärnu and enjoy a few days of sun and sea there.
Getting there
It was convenient to take the Eckerö Line´s MS Finlandia from Helsinki to Tallinn. As we are nowadays travelling with a 5-year old, we try to find the things that would entertain him. MS Finlandia has a café with a children´s corner and we usually opt for this boat because it has big windows and you can see the sea all around and we just buy a coffee and sit down to watch our son play in the kid´s corner during the journey. Very relaxing!
From Tallinn we continued by bus to Pärnu and we got online tickets for Lux express. The bus station is a bit far from the ferry terminal, but luckily there is a direct bus Nr. 2 that took us from the A-terminal to the bus station. (Edit: From 1 December 2024 there is the tram Nr. 2 that takes you from the A-terminal to the bus station.)
Lux express has long haul buses with screens on every seat and a selection of movies. It was a nice surprise as we didn´t expect it. The long haul buses in Finland are not so well equipped usually.
In Pärnu
In Pärnu, we wanted to stay near the beach with our 5-year old who is too old for the stroller but still doesn´t walk that much, so we found a nice small apartment at a walking distance from the beach. It was in a new building with several holiday apartments. Ours had also a terrace, bathroom, fridge and a kettle with some complementary coffee and tea. The terrace was really nice to have the morning coffee.
The place was in an area of old wooden houses. Actually the whole central Pärnu has a lot of old wooden houses of all colours, many of them renovated. It´s really nice to walk around Pärnu, because it has this calm small town atmosphere, the old wooden houses and also quite many restaurants and cafes. My favourite one was Kaks pulka which had normal sushi but also some sushi with an Estonian twist to it. I tried sushi with smoked fish and it was really worth it, if you like sushi and want to try something different. The restaurant also had soljanka soup and pelmeni which my husband tried.
The two kilometer long beach itself is a plan for the whole day, you can walk from one end to another and will likely spend hours, or stay in just one spot. What I found interesting and hadn´t seen anywhere else before were these benches where you could hang your towel and have a little less sand in your body. Great idea!
The beach is also very shallow so it´s perfect for kids. It seems like the city of Pärnu has thought about families with small children as a target group because every restaurant we visited had a children´s play area and the beach has a big playground and an area with different attractions, so it was easy to spend the whole day in the beach area and try new things all the time.
Pärnu also has several spas and the the biggest water park in the whole country, it was July and the weather was perfect, so we also decided to explore the vast beach area.
On the east end of the beach near Poko resto café there is also a short nature trail called Pärnu Rannaniidu matkarada. From there, there are great views towards the bay of Pärnu and it´s possible to see some birds too.
When you get tired of the beach, Pärnu´s parks are also interesting. in one of them we found these lovely grass elephants:
The center of Pärnu is a 30 minute walk away from the beach and because of our 5-year old we went there just once. It is also worth visiting, there some cute shopping streets with those wooden houses and restaurants, and a pathway by the river. Pärnu is like the perfect town for bikes because it´s flat everywhere and the distances are relatively short. We didn´t have bikes unfortunately, but we used Bolt several times, which was really convenient and affordable.
I would definitely recommend Pärnu as a summer destination for families with small children or if you just wish to relax in the sun in a peaceful but buzzling atmosphere and like to eat out. If you like swimming and you are an adult, the Pärnu beach is not the best because you have to walk really far to reach deep waters but for sun bathing and having fun with your friends and family it's just perfect.
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