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Published: October 17th 2007
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Our memories of Tallinn - Playboy advertisements, old buildings, casinos on every corner, lots of souvenir and handicraft stores, strip clubs, cobbled streets, very fancy cars (Porsche, Audi, Hummers), little old ladies selling knitted products, amber jewellery... Total contrasts everywhere. It was a beautiful city and interesting.
After a wonderful break in the UK with my sister and brotherinlaw, and friends in London, it was time to get travelling again. It was much harder to get going after so much nice company, food and accommodation, but it was time to go. And we have the benefit of knowing we are going back.
We flew to Helsinki and then caught a ferry over to Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia. The ferry was like something out of the fifties. It was set up like a cruise ship - heaps of cabins (not sure why you would need one for a 3 hr trip - and I know you all have ideas!), pokie machines in the corridors, a cafe/pub, an entertainment area where they had a couple singing, another cafe and a massive duty free store. They were huge on the duty free - they gave you a handout of the
goods on offer when you entered the boat, and the shop was busy the whole trip.
The boat pulled into Tallinn and we started walking. After maybe 5 minutes it started to rain slightly and the next thing we knew it was hailing! Welcome to Tallinn we thought. It went away and we haven't seen anything worse than rain since - luckily. I did need to buy some more thermal underwear though - not sure how I am going to handle Russia! We spent our first night in Tallinn just wandering aimlessly and succeeded in getting totally lost - we were completely turned about in this town. We found our way home and got a good nights sleep (a whole 8 bed dorm all to ourselves!).
We spent another couple of days in Tallinn before heading south to Tartu. Tartu is probably the main university town in Estonia and it was a really nice looking small city. We booked into some pretty luxurious accommodation (own bathroom and kitchen and even TV!) and spent a lot of time in it after that. Caught up on the news on BBC - saw the announcement of the election in Aus about
Playboy town
It is advertised everywhere! 100 times (good to know it rates a mention over here) - and slept a lot. In the other times we wandered around. We walked around Toomemagi Hill - a gorgeous park area designed in English style with lots of pathways, lots of statues of important people, little rock bridges and there was even a running race going on while we were there. So we sat down and enjoyed the show. It was so gorgeous, all the coloured autumnal leaves falling everywhere.
There was also a small hill in the park which I think was called Lovers Hill and it has a couple of benches there which were covered in padlocks. The padlocks are put there (and in other public places in Estonia - often bridges) by newly married couples as a sign of their commitment to each other. A gorgeous custom and I think we should adopt it!
We also checked out the old cathedral and walked up to the viewing towers for a good look over the town. Then we hit the shops and rediscovered UNO. And so the UNO tournament began. We have been playing quite a lot actually - and it tends to get
Evan's new beanie
There are so many knitted goods for sale in Tallinn, we couldn't not buy something. And it is cold! other people roped in as well.
Then it was back to Tallinn. We spent our first day at the Open Air Museum - a large area of land where they have transported old buildings from all over Estonia and reconstructed them to show Estonian history. Some of the buildings were quite gorgeous, and Evan was especially taken (that Doonybrook house it turning into God knows what). The rest of our time we have spent wandering around Tallinn some more, mostly the old town. The walls surrounding the city are especially beautiful - what there is of them which have survived over the years. Tallinn is also full of craft stores so we visited a few including the blacksmith stores - which were definitely our favourites. There is also amber jewellery everywhere - Poland definitely doesn't have it all. So if you can't get to Gdansk - come here! The wierdest thing about the place was all the strip clubs and Playboy advertisements - they are advertised on bus shelters, outside shopping centres, even in the tourist info magazines. Add to that, there is also a casino on every corner - we never checked out the inside, but we saw
plenty of outsides!
But the rest of the time I have been on the computer trying to get this blog up to date - and guess what? I have!! We leave tomorrow for St Petersburg, and from there we go to Moscow and then we hop on the Trans-Mongolian to Beijing - very exciting month ahead. Would love to hear from you guys, so send a few emails our way.
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