Tallinn

Friday 12 September.

Armed with a free map from the hotel, I walk into the old city which is beautiful but what a lot of other tourists. This is the first place since Vietnam where so many signs are in English. But despite the crowds  it is really pleasant to walk around. Most of the city walls are intact and look suitably impressive. There is a sign in the wall inviting me to go up to the top, mentioning that there are 1.9 km of wall standing. I pay my 3 Euros but find I can go only about 100 m in each direction and the last 50 m in one direction has been taken over by the pigeons. Every city since Ulaan Baataar has been infested with them.

Park Inn Hotel just  outside the Old City

City Wall

Entrance through the City Wall

The town square looks as if it came straight out of a German tourist guide and reading the history, I  learn that the city was previously called Ravel and was a German city controlled by the Hanseatic League during the Middle Ages. Despite official control by the Swedes, Danes and Russians, the Baltic Germans continued to run the city until the first world war when Estonia came into existence as an independent political unit for the first time. 

Town Square

Church and Street in the Old Town

Flying the Flags

Another Church Tower

Up until the early 19th century most Estonians were still serfs with limited freedom. This I learnt in the city museum, which does a great job of telling the Estonian story. Not sure where celebrating your own national identity turns into regarding other nationalities in the state as second class citizens. 30% of the population is ethnically Russian and I guess they don't feel so happy about the situation. In Helsinki I noticed that all the street signs are in both Finish and Swedish although Swedes are only 5% of the population but I don't see similar concessions to Russians here. The last of the Baltic Germans were expelled after the 2nd World War. Continued to explore the narrow streets and found a couple of viewpoints that gave far better views over the city than the 3 Euro city wall did. 

Rooftops, towers and spires

My free map suggests various places to eat but the one I find that serves Estonian food is booked for a private function; luckily I  find an excellent restaurant nearby, Von Krahli Aed, where I have smoked trout and duck for a reasonable  €22.5

Back at the hotel, look at the train times to Riga. There are no direct trains, need to change at Tartu and Valga. It can be done in a day but I would arrive quite late in Riga, so decide to break the journey at Valga which looks to be an interesting little town straddling the Estonian Latvian border. Try to book tickets on line which is fine until the payment stage when it only accepts direct transfers from Estonian banks. Which seems to render the website fairly useless!

Saturday 13th September. After an excellent buffet breakfast, just as good as the Grand Marina in Helsinki, take the No 2 tram from outside the hotel to Balti Jaam, which sounds more like something you would order in an Indian take away than the Railway Station. The station is a bit of a come down after those in China, Russia and Finland. Obviously Soviet Railways didn't see Tallinn as very important. Neither it seems does the independent Estonian government. The space where you might have expected to find a waiting room and ticket office has been turned over to a supermarket. The ticket office is at the side of one of the platforms. There I find I can only buy tickets on the day,  not in advance. Just next to the station there is an old fashioned open air market, the sort where you can buy anything.  On the way from the market towards to Old Town I find a Garden Festival along the old wall.  One of the rather flowery notices encourages you to "take a seat on the bench and see who will sit down on the other side. Strike up a conversation if you feel like it.." Unfortunately someone has roped off the bench so no one  can sit on it. In the main square of the  old town I decide to do the tourist thing and have a cup of coffee and an apple tart at one of the cafes. Beckoning the customers in are two girls in what I assume to be Estonian national costume Bright yellow mid-calf length dresses, low cut with short sleeves, worn over a woolly pullover and jeans. It isn't cold walking around but I feel sorry for them standing in the square approaching every passer by and begging them to sit down. Continue to look around the old town and then head back in the direction of the hotel, stopping off at a supermarket to buy some food for the train tomorrow and look round the Rotermann Quarter which includes some interesting modern  architecture alongside old industrial buildings. .

Modern Building in Rotermann Quarter

Modern Building in Rotermann Quarter

Coca Colonisation

Then head West to Kadriorg Park which is beautiful in the afternoon sun. After exploring quite a bit of Tallinn, it is almost  impossible to believe this was part of the Soviet Union until 1991. I suppose because Russia and the USSR were used almost synonymously, Moscow and the other Russian cities are easy to categorise as post USSR but apart from the language, I think you would be hard pressed to differentiate Tallinn from a similar sized  German city. In the park is a typical, pretty, pink, baroque mansion and an ultramodern Kunst Museum, avenues of trees and fountains in a lake, all of which question my whole concept of "Eastern Europe". Does it have any meaning apart from longitude? (These are my thoughts in Tallinn but I change my mind later) 

Kadriorg Palace

Kunst Museum

Fountains in the Lake

Get the tram back to the hotel and then go out for dinner, back to the place that was closed last night. It is open but full, so I go to Drachon which is in the crypt of the Town Hall and feels suitably medieval, being lit only by candles. The choice of food is limited, sausages soup and pies.  I have the sausages, which are fine, the spinach pie which is disappointing and a mug of beer. From there go to the Hell Hunt pub where I have another beer and some potato wedges. Everyone is intently watching a basket ball match between France and Lithuania. Everyone is cheering for Lithuania who eventually lose by just a couple of points. The Flemish guy next to me explains that the Lithuanians are playing much more elegantly than the French .He tells me that he  and the group he is with are here for the Tallinn marathon tomorrow. It is the first I have heard of it and wonder whether it will affect the trams. The woman on the other side is Estonian and is here on holiday  but tells me she has been living in Leiden, Holland for the last 10 years and works for Heineken. She tells me that despite appearances, the economy in Estonia is still very bad so most young people are leaving as she did 10 years ago. First they leave the villages to go to the cities, then they leave the cities to go abroad.