Camino Pilgrim

Camino Estonia is now complete! 330km from Tallinn Dome church to Valga St. John church.

It is the first time I can start the journey from my doorstep. I plan to continue walking from here next year. I already passed the starting hill of Camino Latvia from a very close distance.

Today was the first night with proper frost in the morning. This made tree leaves drop a lot throughout the day when it was nice and sunny outside. It did rain a little several times but nothing like last time.

Since Tõrva town is not officially part of Camino Estonia I had some choices to make. First choice was easy to go through the rest of town and use the pedestrian road leading a few kilometers out. I did pass a very unique looking orthodox church in Tõrva that was built again from zero a few decades back.

Once the pedestrian road ended I had two choices, either I start walking alongside Tõrva highway, connect easily with the official trail and head all the way into Valga or take a detour road to avoid the highway completely adding +4km and then finishing in Hummuli from where next time I could add another +4km and walk towards Sooru village to skip all highway walking next to cars.

I decided to go straight for Valga because of three reasons. First the weather was good so it was easy for cars to avoid me. Secondly the main road had a lot of very good bus stations where I could even lie down while protected from the sun and the rain. Lastly since the highway leads to Valga city main square then the kilometer markers were counting down exactly to my destination. It felt like walking into Santiago in this sense.

The highway walking was nothing that special until I passed Hummuli, where the last official stage starts. I did not enter the village and stayed on the highway instead. My focus was on eating a burger right outside the village and the official trail did not pass it.

Once I had my belly full I got quite quickly to the last 10km. There the roadside walking area went from one person shoulder wide to a full car wide. I felt quite safe then, but started to hurry a bit because I noticed the sun getting real low. I was now on a race to reach Valga pedestrian roads before it’s too dark on the highway.

While rushing towards Valga, I still took some time to make videos and pictures with the old border markers. The last few kilometers are going alongside the Latvian border. There is no fence in-between so you might not even notice.

Once I got into Valga the nightlamps were just turned on. All the rushing paid off. I slowed my step and continued along the same highway. At some point about a kilometer away The church tower became visible. Lights were projected against the white tower so it’s very clearly seen in the night.

The church itself was closed by now of course. That is fine. Once I start Camino Latvia next year, I can pass by again and collect my missing stamp. I am really looking forward to the next adventure.