Blogs from Estonia, Europe - page 49

It was! Took it easy the first day. Day two got up early to see the city. Turns out (We weren't paying attention when we arrived) we were situated right in the middle of the old town. The polish weather followed us and it poured rain the whole day. This drove us to a tour of the "Oldest City Hall in Northern Europe" and vast improvement in our knowledge of limestone. Who knew there was so much to know about limestone...... In fairness the interior was beautiful and quite interesting. We found an english bar as the craving for burgers was too strong. Ended up heading back there that evening for a few drinks. Met two guys, one Estonian and one Russian. The Estonian guy convinced us he had contacts in every nightclub in town but ... read more

This time I had a bed to sleep on. The last time I caught the cruise ship from Turku to Stockholm I had the floor as a bed but this time was different, I had a cabbin. We set sail from Stockholm bound for Tallinn. Everyone crowded on to the sun deck and gazed out over the waters as they sipped thier beers. Feet up, I joined in the relaxing activities while being serenaded by the small band piping out a few ancient sea chanties. Later that night we were given a performance in the theater. It was a cross between The Grinch and Mirrormask and I had no idea what was going on, but it was pretty fun though. Sharing my cabbin with 3 other men was not fun, especially when I came in at ... read more

The day before, we bought our hydrofoil tickets for roundtrip to Tallinn. It's outside the EU, so we had to go through passport control each way (adding new stamps to the passport -- rare since travel in EU doesn't require). Tallinn is an old medevial town. The old town is basically intact, although some parts were bombed in WWII. We always have thought of it as Soviet, but it was free before WWII (and under Swedish, German and Russian influence in the centuries before). The town and is really more Nordic than Russian, and apparently was happy to reopen interaction with Finland and Sweden, just being a short hop across the Baltic Sea or Gulf of Finland. The old buildings, cobbled streets. Old town is basically all pedestrian, and apparently floods with tourists. Again, old churches, ... read more

Geo: 59.4389, 24.7545Today was our free day in Tallinn. First stop for Bridget, Anita and I was the beauty salon. Anita and I had a 30 minute massage and it was great!! Loved it, especially in this cheap country. We then walked into the old town, looked at souvenirs, walked down little lane ways and under arches. Had a long lunch. Then thought we had better do the educational thing- we went to a museum- 'Estonian History Museum'. The building was built 6090 years ago!! We did some browsing of the clothes and shoe stores. Anita and Bridget went back to the hotel, I kept on window shopping and ventured into the new town and found a shopping centre with air conditioning!! Great place when its hot outside and your hotel room doesn't have air conditioning!Had ... read more

So were the hell is Estonia I hear you thinking? And why would anyone want to go there?! Estonia is on the Baltic Sea, just below Finland, with Sweden to the west and Russia to the east. In 1991 Estonia broke free from Communist rule and in 2004 its tiny population of 1.4 million joined the EU. I was keen to visit Estonia's capital Tallinn, hoping to find a quaint little city, off the Eurail tourist trail, that was undiscovered, quaint and just a little bit different. I got all that and a whole lot more! Tallinn is modern and progressive, yet retains all the picturesque medieval trappings like spires, a town hall square, a UNESCO protected old town and yes, like so many of these little European cities - some genius has labeled it the ... read more