Käsmu Boulder Field

The western shore of the Käsmu peninsula has one of the densest concentrations of glacial erratic boulders in northern Europe — the kivikülv or "stone sowing", where the receding ice sheet dropped hundreds of large granite boulders along a few kilometres of coast. Some of the largest — Matsikivi, Sõmer, Vaarakivi — stand three to four metres above the water and have names of their own in local tradition.

The boulders are best reached on the western half of the peninsula loop trail; the most photographed cluster is at the tip near the lighthouse. In low evening light the granite glows pink against the dark water — one of the great Estonian landscape images.

things to do sight
A story
Local legend has it that the boulders on the Käsmu shore are stones thrown by the giant Kalevipoeg — the hero of the Estonian national epic — at his enemies across the Gulf of Finland. Geologically they are glacial erratics, carried south from the Finnish bedrock by the receding ice sheet roughly 12,000 years ago.