Estonia: Tallinn

Sunday 23rd July

Tallinn here we come! Another city and a pretentious one too, we hear. A favourite haunt for the Scandanavian who pop along over here for some cheap, for them, fun and to stock up on booze! We left Saaremaa island early for the 4hr bus-ferry-bus commute to Estonias capital city on the Gulf of Finland. At the Bussijaam (bus station) we could not find the road out to the Old town and discovered that there is another Bussijaam and we were at the other one on the totally other side of town!! After a long hot slog we eventually found where we wanted to be. We were "hassled" by a young chap asking if we wanted a cheap hostel. Normally we do not go this route but took him up on his offer and had a look at the place. A new place in an old place!! We ventured up a multicoloured stairwell and were shown into the "Funky Dorm". The hostel has only been opened 2 months and is somewhat disorganised but the vibe within was so good that we stayed. The price we negotiated, not the normal thing to do, as we sensed that they really wanted the business. David haggled a bit and we got a good chunk off the price!! A great bonus for us as Estonia is proving to be fairly expensive for us on SA currency. The hostel decor is somewhat unique in here. It is a hodge podge of rasta, tibetan, incense, Turkish hooka pipes, Chinese lanterns, African drums, 60s gramaphone players and vinyl records, old coal stoves and wonderful travellers. A pretty unique place right in the middle of the Old Town. At night we can watch a baby shark (!) swimming around in an illuminated fishtank in the seafood restaurant across the cobbled alleyway!!

A Funky Hostel in a Superb City

Monday 24th July

Tallinn is a superb city. Not as pretentious as we had been told. It seems to be a common meeting point of cultures and the main seaport for crossings to Finland, a couple of hours away, and is also the last point of departure for those heading towards Russia. We really love it here, even tho it is a tad expensive. This morning we made a decision that we have been umming and aaahing about for ages now, to visit Helsinki! Why not. We are so close and may never have the opportunity again. The ferry port was organised chaos when we wandered down there to book our passage across but oh so efficient. That done, we went back to the Old Town to explore Tallinns multitude of alleys and passageways, markets, parks, pavement cafes and endless attractive buildings and churches. The Russian market at the station was the first real true market we have experience so far. It do not think there is anything you CANNOT buy here. you can bargain for items ranging from needle and thread, to antiques, to food, to communist and German paraphenalia including heaps and heaps of genuine Soviet army uniforms, headgear, thigh high winter army boots, Hitler badges, swastikas. You name it, it is all here. In the evening our funky hostel inmates all gathered together for a crazy evening of card games and too much beer!

Tuesday 25th July

Another day of just arbing around the city and we also booked our bust trip to St Petersberg. We thought we would do a night bus for a change so that we arrive early on 1st August and do not waste any precious time on our 1 month visa. This world truly is a small place. On our wanderings we bumped into 2 couples (1 French and one Dutch), who had all been in the same campsite as us on Saaremaa Island, and when we returned to our hostel there were 2 English guys checking in, who had been in our campsite in the Cesis National Park in Latvia!! The French couple had also checked into our hostel in Tallinn and knowing that we were here too, bought 2 bottles of SA KWV wine for us all to share!!