Tallinn

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May 5, 2009
Ferry: Viking Line, Helsinki - Tallinn
Hotel: Old House Hostel, Tallinn, Estonia, $5.44
Today I was planning on heading over to Tallinn in Estonia via ferry. After breakfast I caught the metro and tram (with 2 minutes remaining on my 24-hr transit pass) to the Viking terminal. Several ferries make the short crossing over to Estonia every day; they are very popular for the locals as the ships have duty free alchohol sales. The deck class fare was 32EUR one-way but they make up for it in booze sales! Everyone was there with lots of empty carryon bags/rollaboards; most don't even get off in Tallinn and just come back on the return ferry. Some of the passengers came already pretty well lubricated and it was only 10:30AM. The ferries are floating hotels with restaurants, free wireless internet, a Wii room for kids, a casino, and of course the duty free store. Some ships also offer cabins, but I didn't see the need to pay extra for one for the 2.5 hr trip. On my trip last year to Scandinavia, my friend and I had taken Viking from Stockholm to Mariehamn (Aland Islands) and liked their ships.

I had already booked a hostel online in Tallinn. The great thing was it had shown up on Expedia and I was able to use a coupon on it.. which meant I only ended up paying $10.88 for two nights in a hostel dorm bed.. the cheapest rate I've ever paid for a nights lodging! The hostel was at the edge of Old Tallinn just a short walk up from the ferry terminal. The hostel was in an old building, but the room was clean and had 5 beds. There was a British guy there in the room, talked with him for a few minutes before heading out to explore the town. Unfortunately it started pouring rain just a few minutes later as I huddled under an archway until it stopped. I already liked the look of Tallinn though, the old compact town had cobbled streets and quaint old buildings. Most of them had already been restored and converted into shops, hotels or museums. I have been to the other Baltic capitals in Riga and Vilnius so there was some similarity there as Tallinn had also been a Hanseatic League town. Most of the old city wall here was still intact, including the towers and bastions.

The sun finally comes out and I continue walking through the old square, up past the Olde Hansa Restaurant where people were dressed in medieval costume and selling roasted nuts from a cart. Great smells! I was able to change some Euro to Kroon; though the rate of exchange at the places in town is atrocious. I found a Tex-Mex place; they even had chicken fried steak, but I was afraid to try it. Can't get real CFS anywhere but in Texas of course. :D I wandered up to the upper town, the Nevsky cathedral is here which is Russian style with onion domes. The Klek-en-kok (look in the kitchen) tower unfortunately was closed for repairs so wasn't able to have a look. I found a travel agents where I was able to book my bus tickets to Kaliningrad; I knew there was a bus that left in the evening connecting in Riga. They weren't able to see that itinerary at first, but then they called Eurolines and were luckily able to get me the last seat on the bus to Kaliningrad. I should have booked the tickets online earlier! I headed back to the hostel where I passed out at 7:30PM & slept for almost 12 hrs!

May 6, 2009
Hotel: Old House Hostel, Tallinn, Estonia, $5.44
I had already been traveling for a week and really needed to get laundry done. I found one nearby in the basement of the bus station. The city bus station is just east of Vanu Viru gate in the basement of a shopping center; it was on the way to Kadriorg park to the east of town. I dropped off my stinky clothes and grabbed breakfast of a banana and some chocolate croissants from the grocery store in the shopping center. The center just opened a few years ago and could have been any shopping mall anywhere in the US or Europe.. they even had a Dell store here! I kept walking down the main street to the east, taking the walking tour described in the Lonely Planet. There were some lovely old wooden houses lining the back streets. The In Your Pocket guides are also good for city information, I had downloaded the PDFs for all the cities I had planned to visit.

I imagine Kadriorg park must be very lovely in the spring, but it was still winter here despite it being the 2nd week in May.. the flowers were just coming out and the trees were still leafless. I stopped at a cafe at the edge of the park to use the restroom and have a cuppa tea and a danish. I wandered through the park where Peter the Great's summer palace was located.. pretty small by palace standards. Behind the palace was a geometric garden, but again everything here was still dormant and grey. The presidential mansion is also located in the park just a short distance away.

I walked the 40 minutes back into the old town, then headed to the Must Lammas (Black Sheep) Georgian restaurant for lunch. They had some of the best khachapuri and delicious Azerbaijan kebabs. Khachapuri is a rich cheese pie usually made with lots of butter and egg, delicious if not heart-attack inducing! I picked up my laundry and back to the hostel. There were more people in my room now, including an Aussie who had just spent 4 months snowboarding in Austria, and a girl from Korea.

I headed out one last time for the afternoon; the sun had come out again and I wanted to climb the steeple at St. Olaf's church, once the highest church spire in the world. It had also been used at one point by the KGB to send radio signals to Moscow. The KGB building is nearby, the basement windows bricked up to drown out the screams... The church tower had over 200 steps to the top which gave a great view out over the city.

Came back for a nap, then woke up already after 10PM! I debated going out for food or dancing, decided to stay in but then then Joe said he was hungry too so we headed out after midnight to find a place to eat. Tallinn has good nightlife, lots of bars in the Old Town but I rarely drink so don't usually go out at night.. I do like dancing though when I get the chance. We found a bar that was still serving food and were able to get a couple of burgers. Afterwards we wandered around abit and came across Club Hollywood. Apparently it was Ladies night and lots of eye candy was lined up outside the door. Admission was 90kr and a 5kr coat check. Kinda a young crowd (or I'm getting old) and the usual light show and techno music. I still danced my crazy ass off for awhile. There were gogo dancers standing on platforms; at one point a guy jumped up on the platform and was dancing around with the girl. She kept telling him to get down, finally he did when the bouncers showed up.. then he started dancing crazily around the dance floor.. finally the bouncers were able to get him in a nelson hold and escorted him out!

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