PÜHAJÄRV LAKE

Legend has it that this sacred lake was formed by the tears of a mother mourning her five sons killed in the war, and that the lake's islands are their graves. Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir stayed on its shores, as did Solzhenitsyn, who wrote The Gulag Archipelago. The lake was blessed by the Dalai Lama during his visit in 1992. A plaque commemorates his visit. The lake, which has been a protected area since 1929, offers beautiful beaches for bathing, and there are many good hiking trails in the vicinity (one starts from the national park parking lot).