Part cultural museum part hinterland, the area encompasses the beautiful Blue Hills and great stretches of undeveloped coastland, rolling sand dunes and sloping yellow sands washed over by the whitecaps of the Baltic Sea. The park juts out into the ocean with the beaches of Cape Kolka, while deep virgin forests cover the interior in groves of fir, elm and rare Baltic ivy. The Slitere National Park also comes dotted with oodles of historic fishing villages, many of which have remained truly off-the-beaten-track and rustic because of the presence of an off-bounds military base in the area during Soviet times.