We've come to the end of our stay here in Tallinn, and will be very sad to leave. It's such a beautiful city, much more so than I (Ciara) could have imagined. The Old Town is entirely surrounded by huge city walls and battlements, and everywhere you look you see another amazing piece of architecture, from the Alexander Nevski orthodox cathedral to the gothic town hall tower in the main cobbled square. Here there was a huge Christmas tree covered in lights, and just around the corner they sold the most beautiful smelling cinnamon nuts from an old cart. We arrived [View Full Entry]

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I thought I should ask the pretty girl working at a medieval cart in the heart of Tallinn's old town. "Yes" she replied without hesitation, "if you have your paper and brushes you may begin." I looked at her blankly then repeated, "No, I would like to take a photograph." "Not at all" she responded "just take out your brushes." Huh, now I was really getting confused "Er, I mean with my camera." while pointing at said apparatus for added emphasis "What?" she exclaimed with a frown "I don't know what you are talking about. Weird people!" Finally the penny dropped, [View Full Entry]

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I know, random, huh? Who goes to Estonia? Is it really a country? Well it is. And I did. This small little country is located right at the top of the "Baltic States" (Estonia actually prefers to be included as a Nordic state, not Baltic... but usually people group them with the Baltics), just West of Russia and South of Finland. It also had a coastline on the Baltic Sea (naturally). We flew there from Prague and got put up in some pretty nice hotel rooms. It rained pretty badly the first night, and everyone was a little jet-lagged, so we [View Full Entry]

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Saelt veri folkid!! Vid erum lentum i Tallinn i gaer eftir eina letta og svefnlausa nott i köben, kiktum med Beysa uta lifid og forum svo til Kaspers og krössudum thar, vöknudum svo 20 minotum adur en taxinn atti ad koma nadum samt badir ad sturta okkur og pakka flestu (gleymdi einum helv... poka) adur en taxinn kom. Eftir thad var brunad uta flugvöll og drifum okkur i röd (bissnes class) sem var baedi stutt og gekk fljott fyrir sig en vorum sidan sendir i eina lengstu röd sem eg hef nokkurntimann stadid i 1 & 1/2 klukkutima seinna vorum vid [View Full Entry]

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So hard to decide where to begin! Tallinn is such a surprise considering it’s our first step into what was an eastern block country and after some of the beautiful places we’ve seen it was great to be able to be awe struck again. See Dad, I’m not as much the cynical bitch, as you think. I love these old cities protected from the outside world by their 16th century city wall. The cobbled streets and wonky building and lanes you can get lost for hours in! Yes even the local who have to dress up in their corney old fashioned [View Full Entry]

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I was up bright and early this morning for our expedition around northern Estonia. I was greeted at the front desk with some good news - my bag was in the country and being sent my way! Woo! The Dutch guy who owns the hostel wrote a guide book (THE guidebook in the Dutch speaking world, apparently) to the Baltics and was going to be showing us some cool places around the north in his funky old blue minibus. You always seem to get a good mix from Youth hostels - today was no different. Accompanied by an older Taiwanese lady, [View Full Entry]

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So, the adventure really begins! I was up at 5.30 this morning to catch the plane from plymouth to Gatwick and then onto Tallinn here in Estonia. I made the trip fine, however, my baggage obviously wasn' t so fortunate and hasn't made it as far as Tallinn... After filing my lost baggage report at the airport, I attempted to find my way to the hostel. I took a bus that looked important and hoped for the best. The bus took me through some pretty ropy looking neighbourhoods and past numerous sex shops and what I assume are brothels down to [View Full Entry]

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It was! Took it easy the first day. Day two got up early to see the city. Turns out (We weren't paying attention when we arrived) we were situated right in the middle of the old town. The polish weather followed us and it poured rain the whole day. This drove us to a tour of the "Oldest City Hall in Northern Europe" and vast improvement in our knowledge of limestone. Who knew there was so much to know about limestone...... In fairness the interior was beautiful and quite interesting. We found an english bar as the craving for burgers was [View Full Entry]

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Its hard to say that we were in St Petersburg because so much of it was seen through the windows of a bus and as far as I am concerned unless I can mooch into whichever street/restaurant/shop or museum I please and make some sort of connection with the people then it seems fairly pointless to be there at all. I would have got much the same impression from a travel programme on TV. Anyway the guide, a Russian called Vladimir, fixed us all up with headsets and then put his own on " Ladies and Gentlemen, can you hear me?" [View Full Entry]

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The day before, we bought our hydrofoil tickets for roundtrip to Tallinn. It's outside the EU, so we had to go through passport control each way (adding new stamps to the passport -- rare since travel in EU doesn't require). Tallinn is an old medevial town. The old town is basically intact, although some parts were bombed in WWII. We always have thought of it as Soviet, but it was free before WWII (and under Swedish, German and Russian influence in the centuries before). The town and is really more Nordic than Russian, and apparently was happy to reopen interaction with [View Full Entry]

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