Tallinn Estonia - Medieval City

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July 7 – Tallinn



This morning we docked in Tallinn Estonia – the home of SKYPE – AND I might add the first country to electronically connect all it’s citizens to government services. Each person has a single identity card which serves as their health card/drivers license and everything else – they also have electronic voting. I recall studying this aspect of Estonia when I was involved in designing electronic services for Ontario. Anyhow….. we had booked a food tour of Tallinn and were met by our guide and joined by 7 others also taking the tour. This was a walking tour and I fail to understand why someone who uses a wheelchair and is barely mobile would figure this was appropriate but we did have one elderly person on the tour who had to be pushed over cobblestone streets and was less than mobile. We had 4 food related stops with tastes of typical Estonian food….. our first stop we enjoyed pumpkin soup and a glass of schnapps. The taste stops were diverse with samples of open faced sandwiches of wild mushrooms and sprats to a sparkling wine tasting as a local ‘vitner’ and chocolates and more traditional Estonian liquors as we sat on the city wall over looking the old town. It was a fun, informative and delicious day. After the food tour Zoltan and I went to the Hansa House restaurant for a very light lunch and a local beer – Dark Honey Beer. The restaurant was set in a medieval building and totally done up as though in medieval Estonian times. We were impressed with Tallinn. Nice to see local shops and businesses and not invaded by the American chain stores. It was also market day so there was a village market in the town square which was quite lively with lots of goods for sale. There were lots of cruise ships in the harbour today – about 5 – so lots of tourists in the town – including us.

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