Palmse, Sagadi and Vihula: Lahemaa's Manors on a Day Trip

Three manors turn up on Lahemaa day trips from Tallinn. Palmse is a baroque ensemble with an open-air museum, €8 for an adult from October to April and €12 from May to September (2026). Sagadi puts a manor museum and a forest museum on one €5 ticket. Vihula is now a hotel and spa. Kolga, another manor inside the park, isn’t on any tour sold here.

The full-day tour run by Prangli Reisid OÜ includes one manor, Sagadi or Palmse depending on the season; its itinerary shows half an hour at Sagadi. It is rated 4.9 from 922 reviews and costs from about $134 on the booking platform when we checked. The manor ticket isn’t in the tour price, and neither is lunch, so budget €5 (Sagadi) or €8 to €12 (Palmse, by season) for an adult on top.

Palmse

The Environmental Board calls Palmse “one of Estonia’s finest baroque manor ensembles”. Restoration began in 1972, when the national park’s administration took it over, and Visit Estonia describes it as the first fully restored manor complex in the country. Around the house are parks and gardens, exhibitions, a wine cellar, a café and a tavern serving national dishes. The manor is run by SA Virumaa Muuseumid, the Virumaa museums foundation.

From 1 May to 30 September it opens daily from 10:00 to 18:00, and tickets cost €12 for an adult, €10 concession and €24 for a family. From 1 October to 30 April it opens Wednesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 16:00, for €8, €7 and €18 (2026 prices). The tavern opens daily from 12:00 to 18:00.

The park’s visitor centre stands next door and is free, with a permanent exhibition called “Lahemaa Nature and Man”. The State Forest Management Centre (RMK) runs it: daily from 9:00 to 17:00 between 15 May and 15 September, and on weekdays only, 9:00 to 16:00, for the rest of the year, closed on public holidays.

Sagadi

Sagadi’s main house was finished in 1753 in the Rococo style and rebuilt about 40 years later in the early Classicist style you see now. Restoration began in the late 1970s on the initiative of Rakvere Metsamajand, a forestry enterprise, and the Environmental Board counts it among the most remarkable restored manor ensembles in Estonia. RMK runs it today, with a hotel, a restaurant and a nature school alongside, and one ticket covers both the manor house and a forest museum.

As of October 2026, tickets cost €5 for an adult, €3 for a student or pensioner, and €10 for a family of two adults and up to two children under 17; under-7s go free. It opens daily, from 10:00 to 18:00 between June and September and from 10:00 to 16:00 between October and May.

The estate once reached well beyond the house. From 1838 the whole fishing village of Altja belonged to Sagadi.

Vihula

Vihula is the odd one out. It now trades as Vihula Manor Country Club & Spa, a hotel and spa, and we found no museum or ticket there. Food Sightseeing Estonia’s day trip stops for 20 minutes.

Which tours stop at which manor

The sunrise bog hike, the bog-shoe hike, the Jägala-and-bog half day and the Tallinn birding trip don’t visit a manor.

Lunch on a manor day

On the full-day tour and on Traveller Tours’ day trip you stop at a tavern and pay for your own lunch; Traveller Tours’ listing says only that “prices are reasonable”. Food Sightseeing Estonia’s trip is the only one with a meal included, a light two-course lunch rather than a full-size one. Its reviewers don’t agree about it: one September guest called it one of the best meals they’d had in Estonia, another called the food average. The trip also has the lowest rating of the eight listings on this site, 4.1 from 94 reviews.

If you’re driving, the park has its own places to eat: the tavern at Palmse, the tavern in Altja that the national park built in the 1970s, Sagadi’s restaurant, and the Viitna tavern.

Which manor, then?

On the full-day tour the season decides, not you. Sagadi’s single €5 ticket covers two museums. Palmse, which Visit Estonia calls one of the grandest baroque mansions in Estonia, costs €8 from October to April and €12 from May to September.

For a manor in your day without arranging anything yourself, book the full-day tour and keep the ticket money aside.

Check dates for the full-day tour

For the road out and the buses, read how to get to Lahemaa from Tallinn. The Viru bog guide covers the other big stop of the day, and is Lahemaa worth visiting adds up what a day costs. Every tour is compared on the homepage.

Manor facts and 2026 prices from the Environmental Board, RMK, Visit Estonia and the Palmse manor site; tours from the listings. Checked October 2026.