Introduction to Parnu, Estonia Pärnu

The main town on Estonia's southwestern coast, PÄRNU comes into its own in summer, when the faded beach resort fills with visitors intent on making the most of the brief good weather. The sandy beaches are popular with young families, but the festivals cater to an alternative, cultural crowd and the mud baths of the many sanatorium spas are a must. The historic sights are mostly clustered in its Old Town. The bus station is on Pikk at the northeastern edge of the Old Town (information & ticket office at Ringi 3, round the corner), and the train station is about 5km east of the centre at Riia mnt. 116. Rüütli, lined with two-storey wooden houses, is the Old Town's main thoroughfare, cutting east–west through the centre. Near the junction with Aia is the Pärnu Museum, Rüütli 53 (Wed–Sun 10am–6pm, 30EEK), devoted to local history, and housing some of Estonia's oldest archeological finds as well as examples of local traditional costume. The oldest building in town is the Red Tower, a fifteenth-century remnant of the medieval city walls on Hommiku, running north from Rüütli a few blocks west of the museum. Despite its name the tower is white – only the roof and window frames are red – and it now houses an antiques shop. Pühavaimu, a few blocks to the west, has a pair of respectable-looking seventeenth-century houses near the junction with Malms, one in lemon yellow, the other in washed-out green with a large gabled vestibule. Moving west from Pühavaimu along Uus leads to the Catherine Church, a green-domed and multi-spired Orthodox church dating from 1760 and named after the Russian empress Catherine the Great. The interior is abundantly furnished with icons but is open for services only. From here, Vee runs down to Kuninga, the Old Town's other major street, at the western end of which is the seventeenth-century Tallinn Gate, an elegant relic of the Swedish occupation set into the remains of the city ramparts and now home to a bar. Kuninga heads east to the Lutheran Elizabeth Church (Mon–Fri 10am–2pm) dating from 1747, with a maroon and ochre Baroque exterior and plain, wood-panelled interior. From here, Nikolai leads south to Esplanaadi, where the Chaplin Centre (daily 9am–9pm; 15EEK) occupies the former Communist party HQ at no. 10. Taken over by local artists in the post-independence years, it holds regular shows, film festivals and a collection of contemporary Estonian paintings and other works donated by international artists, including Yoko Ono. South of here Nikolai joins Supeluse, which runs down to the city's resort area, passing beneath the trees of the Rannapark, a shady park separating the town from the beach. At the southern end of Supeluse are the grand, colonnaded Neoclassical Pärnu Mud-Baths, built in 1926, and painted in the familiar ochre. Nearby is Pärnu's sandy, white beach, packed at weekends and on public holidays.

Information by Rough Guides

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