A forgotten gem strategically placed between Russia and Scandinavia, this former Soviet Republic has undergone a rapid transformation since independence. The internet and mobile phone revolutions in particular have the nation by storm The influence of modern technology co-exists happily with a people that are strongly connected to nature to nature, and whose land-almost half of which is forest-is home to countless traditions and folk tales.

May to July for the good weather

Rejuvenating in a mud bath at one of Parnu’s health spas Trying to walk across the icy cobbled streets of wintry medieval Tallinn Catching a ferry to the outlying island of Saaremaa Collecting amber (‘Baltic gold’) washed up along the western coast Seeking out brown bear, lynx, woles and, if you’re lucky, the rare European flying squirrel

Read anything by Lydia Koidula-Estonia’s first lady of poetry; or Jaan Kross’s The Czar’s Madman

Listen animated films from Estonia such as the bizarre creations of Priit Parn and Mati Kutt that verge on surreal and absurd

Eat suitsukala (smoked fish), verivorst (blood sausage), verileib,(blood bread) and, for true vampires, verikakk (balls of blood in flour and eggs with pig fat thrown in for taste)

Drink Vana Tallinn (a syrupy liqueur) or Saku (beer)

Ma olen taimetoitlane (l’m a vegetarian)

Quiet, reserved people; mobile phone addicts; White Nights-midsummer evenings that remain in twilight till dawn; grand limestone buildings; open-air song festivals; stag night weekends

Estonia received the attention of 160 million TV viewers it hosted the 2002 Eurovision Song Contest; it is home to one of Europe’s few accessible meteorite craters at Kaali on Saaremaa lsland; it has a centuries-old shamanistic tradition

Bogs have historically provided isolation and protection to Estonians. Witches were said to live there. According to Estonian folklore, it is the evil will-o-the-wisp who leads people to the bog, where they are forced to stay until the bog gas catches fire, driving the grotesque bog inhabitants out for all to see. Closer to reality, bogs were also handy hiding places for partisans and anyone to escape military invaders, who could not penetrate them as easily as forests.