Tallinn

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When Lindsay and I were planning our trip this summer, we were always keeping an eye out for cheap budget flights. One great deal that we found was a flight on Easyjet from Berlin to Tallinn, Estonia. We also found a flight from Helsinki (a short ferry ride across the Baltic Sea from Tallinn) back to Cologne, Germany. It turns out the cost of the two budget flights plus the ferry was comparable to the cost of train tickets from Berlin to Cologne. So, we thought why not, and so we went.

Tallinn was a different city than we have been in recently. The history and culture is influenced by Russia and Finland, so it made for an interesting mix after being in a Germanic/Slavic part of the world. From our short time in Tallinn, we noticed that the people seemed very style conscious and tech-savvy (like Finland), things were more expensive (like Finland), Russian foods and liquors were common at restaurants, and there were signs in Russian around town.

We stayed at the Tallinn Backpackers Hostel and the people working there were very nice. Most of them were our age (or much younger) and they were really friendly and always around if we had questions or wanted to hang out. The downside about the hostel was it was pretty dirty. Most hostels clean the bathroom at least once a day. I think these guys cleaned it bi-weekly (at most). On the plus side there was wireless internet and we had a big room in a good location.

Tallinn’s old town was one of the nicest we’ve seen, and it was very pleasant for walking around, which is what we spent most of our time doing. During the afternoons, we visited a few museums, including the Museum of Occupations, which had several well-produced videos and some artifacts from Estonia’s time as part of the Soviet Union and also a short time under Germany during World War II. From this museum we learned that communism wasn’t much fun, especially when Moscow was forcing it on you. We also visited the Maritime Museum which has some ship paraphernalia (models, buoys, lighthouses, sails, diving suits) and photos of tough looking sailors from the past 200+ years. From this museum we learned that we don’t want to be sailors.

Another fun thing about this part of our trip was we were far enough north that the sun barely went down at night. Sunset was technically at 10:40pm, but it was still relatively bright until around 1:00am. It stayed kind of dark blue for a few hours after that and then started to brighten up again around 3:30am. Sometimes it was a bit disorienting for sleeping, but mostly it was fun because people were out enjoying the evening until well after midnight.

- Jason

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Photos

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral
Russian Orthodox

Pancake at Kompressor
This might be one of the best things we ate on the entire trip - a crepe/pancake filled with smoked trout and cheese. It was almost enough food for two people, and it only cost a few dollars!