Tartu

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Yes, it's true, our time in Tallinn and that gorgeous apartment needed to come to an end. On the morning of the 26th, we looked at all of our stuff that had migrated out of our backpacks over the last couple of days and hastily shoved it back in, did one last pass of tidying up, checked out, and headed out to the bus station. Due to our experience with Altja, we'd already quadruple-checked our transport schedules and left quite a bit earlier than was probably necessary, but peace of mind was what we wanted that morning.

One bus ride later and we were in Tartu, the capital-c-Cultural capital of Estonia and the location of its largest university. Having just arrived, pretending at being pack animals, we figured it'd be a good idea to find our lodging and see if we could set our stuff down early before exploring. We made our way to Tampere Maja, a hostel/guesthouse/cultural exchange center run by Tartu's Finnish sister city. There were plenty of guidebooks in the foyer for art exhibits, festivals, etc., but as all of them took place in Tampere, they were completely useless to us. But they did have our room ready for us. Well, not our room exactly, since that one had actually run out of hot water earlier that day, but a room for five that was actually twice as large as the one we'd booked. It also included a kitchen and they only charged us for the smaller room, so we were quite pleased. On to the adventure!

It appears that college towns are the same in the Baltics, too -- lots of coffee shops, a large open space for gatherings, cheap food and drinks, and plenty of space for people to post flyers. Also, those of you who have been to or lived in know how there are made of all around the city? Well, Tartu's got that, too, though here they couldn't decide on one single animal. So at various spots around the city centre we saw concrete finches, turtles, knights' helmets, clogs, Pegasi, and something that reminded us of musk oxen. Their primary purpose seemed to be to keep people from driving around on the pedestrian streets, but they were certainly something new to spot around seemingly every corner.

There were also quite a few museums in Tartu. We were able to see two before we got museum-brain: The Toy Museum had some amazing old toy displays (I thought the hand-whittled simplified sheep-herding dolls were especially cool) and some, including the puzzle toys and select board games, had hands-on copies we could try. This museum also had a small, but terrifyingly pink, exhibit on the 50th anniversary of Barbie that we didn't stay too long in. The most jaw-droppingly gorgeous piece of the complex was actually the separate House of Theatre and Animation Puppets, which had displays of many of the stop-action puppets and models used for the Estonian National Puppet Theater's productions over the years. (Madison folks: I picked up a DVD of some of these; let me know if you want to watch 'em.)
Also, since we had visited the Finnish Postal Museum when I visited Erin in Helsinki in 2005/6, we just had to go to the Estonian Postal Museum in Tartu. It was definitely smaller (though they were between rotating exhibits, the permanent collection only took up two small rooms), and unlike the Finnish version, there were no postal-themed rap recordings here. 😞

In general, Tartu is a good town to walk around in: there are usually other people about, it feels cozy, and in general we agreed that it would be a reasonably nice town to spend some more time in. But it was getting late, and our time to do anything more that day was waning. So a short dinner that we made ourselves, a walk by the waters of the Emajõgi, and a failed attempt to head off to an Estonian-language art film later, and we were plum-tuckered out, ready for the next day.

The next morning, we grabbed a quick cereal, egg, smørrebrød, and juice breakfast and headed off for one last jaunt, through the Tartu Ülikool (University) botanic gardens. Again with the surprising depth of natural area -- the entrance was only half a block wide, but it felt like the gardens went on forever back behind that wall. We saw some pretty strange flowers and some really lovely butterflies, but the clock kept ticking and it was time for our bus to Pärnu.

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Photos

Rainy Lovers
This is the fountain out in front of the town hall in Tartu's Raekoja Plats. They be a-smoochin'!

Dragon Spout
A cool-looking metal gargoyle on a building near Tampere Maja in Tartu.

Duck Board Game
We can't remember the name of this game, but the most awful things happened to this poor duck on his way to the meadow.
(Erin won, by the way.)

Comments

[jmj]

The link to the Toy museum was wonderful! Contemporary artists' dolls that were ironically so old worldly-nostalgic, and the idea of diplomas in doll-making, passing a craft to the next generation. This is one of the richnesses of experiencing europe. Speaking of lovely gardens, taste any local honeys yet?