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The Walled City of Talinn
And in keeping with the medieval theme, notice the guy with the bow and arrow taking a shot.After Scandinavia a few weeks ago, I was back on the road again to the same region as I travelled for the first time to the Baltic's where the first stop was Talinn in Estonia. The trip was in doubt up until a couple of days beforehand due a volcano in Iceland that was spewing ash all over Europe and closed the skies for several days, but thankfully it cleared just in time for me and I was off.
My first night in Talinn there is not a lot to mention as my memory of the night starts to fade dramatically as it progressed. Strange how that happens. It all started when I checked into the hostel and they passed me a rather large shot of vodka as a welcome. Over the course of the night, I kept protesting that I needed to go and get some dinner but it just never happened. So I was roped (completely against my will of course....) into a pub crawl. A few pubs and several hours along, I had a cocaine injection shot (absinthe and galliano), and that was pretty much all she wrote for that evening (and most of the next morning
View over Talinn
Over the majority of the old town as well).
But I did eventually manage to drag myself out of bed and wandered the cobbled streets of Tallinn's old town and admired the still partially walled city. I explored a few of the sections of the wall, a couple of the towers and also found some viewing platforms that overlooked the city and out to the ports leading to Finland and beyond. After seeing what I wanted to see, I joined a few of the other guys and returned to the pub (alcohol free this time) and watched a couple of games of football before a relatively early night before an early start heading down to Riga in Latvia.
It was a gentle 5 hour bus ride down to Riga and almost no sign to say that you had passed into another country. I checked into the hostel and was straight out again to explore and first point of call was up to the top of St Peter's church where I got some great views over the Daugava river and the rest of Riga. Then it was into the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, which has an incredible amount of memorabilia and stories relating to
Walled Gate
The fortified entrance the period of occupation and the atrocities committed by first Russia, then Germany, then again by the USSR. It is definitely one of the better museums I have visited in the world. After some dinner and more football, it was back to the hostel for the night.
The next morning, I decided I had seen what I wanted to of Riga and with my flight not until half past 10 at night, I decided to head out to Sigulda, about an hour out of the city. It is supposedly the adventure capital of Latvia, but it was very quiet when I was there, probably due to the fact it was Monday and no stag parties were around. So I spent the day wandering around the ruin of several castles and the very picturesque region covered in pine trees.
Then it was back to Riga, more Latvian local food for dinner and off to the airport and an uneventful flight back to the UK. Then via the most British of British things - a lot of queueing - I made my way home by about 1:30am. After my travel fast up until Sweden and Finland, I am back to
Walled Gate #2
Another fortified entrance my jetsetting ways, ready for another weekend away the following weekend through Dublin and Galway as Ben and I search for a Irish husband for Leah. Hmmm, I smell a reality TV show....
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Hanz
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Riga!
Hey James, that place looks amazing - rather jealous I couldn't make it! (although visa's are important too)