Naissaar Island Discovery Smartguide 2 day pass

The ticket actually only gets you the ferry ride to the island, a map and a audio tour guide. Then you walk a dirt trail to the sea mine but there is only one sign that points you down a trail to the left. After that you have to watch for blue paint markers on the trees. But you will come to a three way split at a railroad tracks that shows points 9 and 11 from the map but it doesn’t tell you which trail to continue. Looking at the map and the 9 and 11 point the two are opposite from each other. The trail markers on the trees are marked with green and blue markers on all three trails. The downloaded gps points on my phone didn’t match up either. I eventually found it. It was in very degrading state—which I expected but for me was still so interesting. The walk back was easier since I now a good idea of the land layout.The south train is weird. It goes to the old barracks but it leaves the port then immediately returns. If you buy a round trip — which I did the train doesn’t come back to pick you up at 4 pm but the very leaves the port at 3:15 pm. If you want to look around then you have to walk back to the port. Several people were confused by this. I choose to skip the barracks to head back to the port to walk to the sea mines. Another odd thing.. if you want to go to the north side of island you have to buy tickets for the military type trucks or the train. Just weird.

We took the ferry over to the island, as advertised. The audiobook app did not function for the island. We discovered on our own that walking to and from the north point of the island (the main sights to see) was 6-7 km each way and would be far too much to try to get in the time frame by foot alone. Everyone else on the ferry seemed to know what they were doing and piled into cars that took them somewhere on the island (pretty much disappeared within minutes of landing). We asked an employee and he said we could rent bikes, which were poorly maintained and extremely heavy- we did and it was a difficult ride for us (sand and unpaved) but we made it to the north spot. The lighthouse was €5 cash per person to walk up- great view but it’s exhausting to get up the 207 steps! We tried to find the “picturesque” bunkers advertised but didn’t find anything except old pieces of metal or unused buildings around. There was no real signage (even in Estonian, it wasn’t much) and it didn’t feel like there was any visitor infrastructure. We biked back and again, very grueling if you’re not a regular biker and had a very limited supply to choose from for food at the port spot since September 2nd counts as “offseason” here. Favorite part was the ferry and the beanbags to rest. Tip: board first to get the beanbags on the top area. Little bit more food options to purchase on board. I wish we could’ve been more informed (bring your own food, book a truck tour ON TOP OF THIS TOUR, know where to see the cool sights… it was missing a lot of important information on the booking site.

This Tallinn island is very interesting experience just a short boatride from maritime museum. You may think such island near capital city is full of tourist traps but this is tranquil nature reserve with forest, fortress ruins overgrown by vegetation, obviously lighthouse where you can get on observation deck (for a small fee of EUR 5). There is even an old military railway on the island and a small section is still operated. The best way to explore is to rent a bike.