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Published: September 14th 2008
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Saturday 23 - Wednesday 27 August 2008 We both had a tops night sleep in the ‘Romantika’ (something about ships perhaps....) and, because we had forgotten to set our watches to the new time zone, only woke up when an announcement was made saying we were an hour from Tallinn. The port we arrived at was very well set up and clearly catered for large numbers of tourists arriving by passenger ferry. There were already three large ships berthed in the port and later we discovered a second port just around the bay.
A city sightseeing bus was waiting out the front, so we decided to do one full loop of the tour and then get off at the stop closest to our hostel. We couldn’t realise it at the time, but because of all the rain the following day, we ended up spending quite a bit of time on the bus and definitely got our money’s worth. Speaking of money, everything in Tallinn was so much cheaper than Scandinavia, and even a little cheaper than Australia, which was great.
I had some initial doubts about our hostel, Vana Toms. Firstly, a man gave us directions that ended
Alexander Nevsky Cathedral
Russian Orthodox Church in the Old Town with ‘right below the strip club’ and then about 15 guys on a buck’s party walked past as we were checking in. It was a little noisy (particularly on the Saturday night) but overall fairly clean and in a fantastic location, right in the middle of the Old Town.
The Old Town is all cobblestones, narrow roads (pedestrians only), church spires and buildings dating from when Tallinn was a prosperous medieval port. We saw medieval themed restaurants (complete with town criers) and there were archery stands set up around the town as well. Toompea Castle, which today houses Estonia’s parliament, was built on the highest point in the Old Town. It is closed to the public, but areas next to it afford great views over the Old Town, the ports and the modernised business district.
We did an extremely random tour called the ‘funky bike tour’ one afternoon. The ride took us into the rough - and predominantly Russian - area of Tallinn. The main highlight (as far as I could figure) was a visit to a decrepit, creepy prison that apparently was only closed down a few years ago after the inmates kept getting sick and is
Archery Anyone?
What else would you do in a medieval city? now used to host raves. At one point we were also given 5EEK (about 50 cents) and had to run around a Russian market and buy the most unusual thing. We were a pretty uncreative group and Sean’s bubbles were probably the most unusual thing that anyone bought (more unusual than some guys banana anyway). So the tour was a little on the odd side, but our young guide was friendly and happy to pass on his knowledge of the Russian occupation, which was all very interesting and is, of course, denied by Russia today.
It rained fairly heavily for a full day, so a lot of our sightseeing in Tallinn was curtailed. We did the city sightseeing bus tour (again), with the intention of getting off at Kadriorg Park and Palace (built by the Russian Tsar Peter the Great), but neither of us could muster the enthusiasm to get off the bus in the pouring rain, so we just continued on with the loop.
We did, however, find the energy to climb up the 124m spire of St. Olaf’s Church. The spiral stairs were extremely narrow and steep and if someone was coming in the other direction
Our 'Funky' Bike Tour Visits the Old Tallinn Prison
This only shut down in the last few years. Overall it was a fairly depressing site that held German and Russian POWs (Estonia went through a few hands) and typical criminals that were lucky enough not to be sent to Siberia. we had to squash against the wall to let them pass. The Church was the tallest building in the world in about 1650 and has burned down numerous times thanks to lightning strikes. The view was great and we had the place pretty much to ourselves, although we did get rather wet.
On Monday morning it was still raining, so it was with some relief that we boarded the bus for the 4.5 hour journey to Riga, the capital of Latvia. We stayed at Argonauts, an Australian owned hostel (???) right in the middle of the town (no stag parties allowed).
Riga has an exciting vibe and I found the whole place fascinating. One of our maps said that Riga, post Soviet era, was suffering from an identity crisis. A large proportion of the population is Russian, however, Latvia has welcomed Western markets and development and a small proportion of the population is seriously rich. Flashy money is evident everywhere, as shown by the number of corvettes just parked in the streets and UNESCO has apparently threatened to remove the cities heritage status, because of the amount of development changing the landscape. Our guide said that Riga had
Estonian Opera/ Concert House
Russian designed, award winning??? become a mecca for the worst of what the West had to offer and there were signs everywhere warning tourists about crime and scams.
We did another walking tour, which while just as random as the tour in Tallinn, turned out to be really good thanks in most part to the other tourists in the group. Again we wandered through the Russian (read rough) part of town, where our guide dutifully pointed out the hemp flourishing in overgrown yards. We passed the former KGB headquarters for the city (the government still has to decide what to do with it) and street after street of Art Noveau buildings (Jane- this beats Napier, NZ hands down). We spent the rest of the day with the German and Austrian couples in our group and headed to the roof top lounge of a hotel to enjoy the afternoon views and cocktails. From there we enjoyed a free classical pianist concert in St. Peter’s Church (ok, I enjoyed it while Sean struggled to stay awake) and then walked alongside the river.
We were very envious of the Austrian couple who were flying back to Vienna the following morning. Our overnight bus was due
MS Estonia Memorial
852 people lost their lives in 1994 when the ship sunk while on transit from Tallinn to Stockholm to depart Riga at 10pm and arrive in Warsaw the next morning and from there we had to make arrangements to travel back to Vienna. The bus journey was fairly painful, mainly because the bus was full and the driver stopped every one to two hours, right through the night, for smoke breaks. The bus dropped us off somewhere outside Warsaw, so we spent a good couple of hours making our way into the Central station. Luckily, we ran into quite a few helpful people who assisted us in buying tickets, deciding which train we needed to catch and even telling us when we had arrived at our stop.
After two weeks of dodgy hostels, overnight buses, trains and my heavy backpack I was keen to get back to Vienna (home sweet home?), so was cheering when we managed to get seats on a train that would have us in Vienna that evening. The journey itself was one of the best as the weather and scenery improved as we approached Austria and for the most part we had a whole cabin (six seats) to ourselves, which meant we could stretch out.
After four months of pretty solid travelling,
we are now looking forward to settling down somewhere and enjoying a slightly quieter few months. I am hoping to teach English and we are still waiting to hear about whether Sean got the job after his interview in Paris.
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Nina
non-member comment
Wow
Wow Megan, what an awesome holiday! Thanks for sending me the link. I look forward to reading about your many adventures :) Cheers, Nina