My trip almost ended today. I had missed the bus tour (the one included for free with my Tallinn Card) so I headed back to the Old Town again, thinking I'd do the audio tour instead. I'm walking along and heading back to the tourist info place... I see a souvenier stall across the street. The guy has one of those rotating postcard stands, seeing how I'm leaving tomorrow and haven't written anyone, I cross the street. The older gentleman there tells me 10 Kroons for the big ones, 7 for the small ones. Ok, cool, I'm about to just browse [View Full Entry]

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Here are some images. Enjoy. [View Full Entry]

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Ok! So maybe I *AM* knocking Tallinn! I bought the 48 hour Tallinn Card today. You know the kind, every touristy city puts one out that allows the bearer to use public transport for free and then some sort of discount into gems such as the The Estonian Fire Fighting Museum The Museum of Occupations The Townhall Pharmacy (where I can get a free sample of marzipan) and let's not forget, The Mine Museum. (Mine as in kaboom, not like frenchman in box). * * * Ok, I kid. There are other museums/sights that I can get into with the card [View Full Entry]

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Makes me wish I was still in Helsinki. :-/ I'm not knockin Tallinn, but it's just that I already miss Helsinki. I don't even know why; it was kind of a dead town. Maybe I miss it because Vesa was the one familiar face and now I won't have anyone until Germany. ohwell. Oh, and this is pretty exciting. I have an exit stamp from Finland and it has a picture of a boat! Woo. And, you can probably guess... I have an entry stamp from Estonia and it has a picture of a boat, too. The first thing I noticed [View Full Entry]

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Arrived in Tallinn off the boat in the early afternoon, to find the address of the hostel had moved so off we lugged our bags around the old medieval-style town of cobbled streets and red-tiled turrets. It's straight out of a story-book, and Rapunzel style towers at every corner. Met a couple of nice girls from England (Nicole and Emily) who insisted on recounting their horror experiences with the corrupt guards of Russia who stop tourists and withold passports to elicit bribes, just to get us all psyched up for our trip there! Thankfully the thaw was setting in, so no [View Full Entry]

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oh eastern europe. how entertaining you are. I took a cruise from Stockholm to Tallin with a brief, 10 min, docking in Finland. The cruise was... interesting. That night we enjoyed cheap food at the "fast food" joint, some duty free shopping, karaoke and the aluminum club. Then we got off at about 10:30 in Tallin, walked through Gamla Stan there (which is apparently one of the most preserved), did a little shopping, and was back on the boat by 4:30. I even had authentic Estonian food: fried rye bread (delicious) and Farm Gir's Stew (vegetables and broth--kind of boring. luckily [View Full Entry]

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Estonia!! On Saturday morning bright and early a group of us left Helsinki around 7am and took a ferry to Estonia, which is located about three hours south of Helsinki across the Gulf of Finland. Estonia is a very small country and we went to the capital, Tallinn. The majority of the time our group stayed in the "Old City" section of Tallinn. The architecture of the city was very beautiful and very colorful. When walking around I got some great pictures of the buildings and views of the city from the highest point. The pictures do a better job of [View Full Entry]

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HI Today I took the 1.5 hour fast boat to Tallinn.. What a city.. I LOVED it.. it was so amazing.. The weather had been bad and the boats did not go yesterday and wouldn't go today till noon. They couldn't guarantee that I could make it back to Helsinki but I took the chance and went anyways.. and I am SO glad I did.. I now wish I had come sooner and went to Lithuania and Latvia as well.. but what can you do.. The old city is like nothing I have seen so far.. my Favorite place to date. [View Full Entry]

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Hi all, sorry it has been so long, but I have been pretty busy. The ferry over to Tallinn was very nice with a cafe and store on board. I thought it would travel a little faster being a hydrofoil, but we went a constant 38 MPH, still not bad at 1 hour 30 min for the crossing from Helsinki. Tallinn is a huge port for tourists and the streets of the old town was sort of like being in Disneyland. Filled with toursits with their cameras out taking pictures and buying trinkets, but the town has been put back into [View Full Entry]

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Weather: raining, no wait, sunny! no... raining, no, it's sunny! I think they call this unsettled? I emailed this to a friend, then realised it would make a good entry, so thanks to the miracle of cut&paste, here is a summary of my first 3 days on the road: We're in Tallinn now - I arrived in Helsinki on monday evening after 25 hours travelling (it usually takes that long to cross the world, but to cross europe, it seemed a little much), spent 24 hours there, and have spent the last 2 nights in Tallinn. We're still in Tallinn, but [View Full Entry]

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