September 9th, 2008: Tallinn, Estonia
Bob: When we went down to breakfast, it was raining and the sea was a lot rougher than it had been on the previous day. Although we saw a lot of whitecaps among the waves, it seemed to be more of a heavy chop than a swell because the ship was still very steady and barely moving from side to side. I spent well over an hour re-reading Rick Steve's section on Tallinn where he suggests an itinerary for a walking tour of the old city section, and then carefully transferred all the numbers and descriptions from his book to the really nice map of Tallinn that Costa Cruise Line had provided for us. However, all that effort ultimately came to naught as I left the bloody map sitting untouched at the side of the bed when we hied ourselves off to Tallinn. I did have fun starting the book "Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind" by Ann B. Ross that Monika had found in the ship's library; the Southern dialect and point of view of the main character sounded really true-to-life to me, and I look forward to seeing how Miss Julia would cope with her deceased husband's suddenly discovered illegitimate son.
|
Monika: We were not supposed to reach Tallinn until 1PM, so we had the morning for some activities, like a very interesting lecture on the history of St. Petersburg. I had not been aware, that the town was pretty much built by and for Tsar Peter the Great. The lecturer went into all the problems that were associated with the building of the town. The lecturer was Russian, spoke very good English, knew the history and culture and to boot was very entertaining. So we enjoyed the lecture.
|
Bob: We broke off for lunch to give us the energy for an expected afternoon of walking, and as we were finishing our meal our ship slid quietly into Tallinn harbor. We arrived somewhat earlier than had been scheduled and that allowed us to take a shuttle bus in and get started walking by 1:30. Since it was a steady, cold, soaking kind of rain, Monika suggested that we pop for the 6 Euros each for the shuttle bus that drove us from the ship right up to the outside of the old section of the city. That distance was only a mile or a little over and had the weather been nicer we almost certainly would have rather walked than taken the shuttle bus. But I guess we're getting old or something because once she mentioned it, it sounded like a great idea to me, too. (For the benefit of the younger generation who might be laughing their heads off at people over 60 wondering if they are getting "old": Uncle Bob's definition of "old" always means anyone who is at least 10 years older than my current age, so it's something of a sliding scale. The advantage of using this scale is that you, personally, will never really get "old".) |
Monika: When we docked in Tallinn it was raining, so they handed us light blue ponchos when we were disembarking. Once in Tallinn we always could tell the other Costa cruisers by their light blue ponchos! We had not booked any excursions, but did spring for the bus trip to the center of town. Since we had only the afternoon in Tallinn, this gave us the maximum time to explore the city. We had left our map of Tallinn in our room. This was the map where Bob very carefully had mapped the sights that Rick Steve had suggested we should see. Luckily the bus driver gave us another map. So we did find our way around and probably saw all the sights, even if it was in a more helter skelter way. |
Bob: From the shuttle bus stop we walked South two blocks and then turned into the old section through Viru gate, one of the remaining gates on the old city wall. We meandered inside along narrow, twisting streets that gradually trended uphill. I called a stop at the tourist information center, where I asked about the internet connections available in Tallinn. The pleasant young lady not only told me the location for an internet cafe just down the block and around the corner, but she also mentioned that the entire city of Tallinn is basically covered with a free WiFi internet access, augmented by the local WiFi networks in many cafes and restaurants. I decided then and there to try my luck catching a free WiFi link from our ship before we left port.
|
Monika: We first walked to the town hall square and were impressed by the old houses around the square. We felt sorry for all the outdoor cafes around the square that would not benefit from the influx of tourists. |
Bob: Instead we continued uphill past the Niguliste Museum, which looked like it was an old church converted to a museum. I would have liked to gone in and browsed a bit, but I was also conscious of the fact that we only had until 5 p.m. and I'm often very slow (glacial?) in museums, so we continued upwards through yet another high stone wall with towers into the Toompea section of the city. The Toompea section of Tallinn up on the hill represents the old central Estonian royal government, whereas the part of the old town down below was a Hanseatic League commercial center dating from the 1200s. In particular, it looked like Tallinn was associated with Luebeck in Germany as part of the Hanseatic League.
|
Monika: From the square, we walked through the old town past the city gates to the newer section. On top was a rather typical Russian Orthodox church and the parliament building. The church was quite beautiful both inside and out but, of course, picture taking was not allowed. |
Bob: The Parliament building across the street from the Nevsky cathedral was clearly open for business, and I would have like to have climbed Tall Herman's Tower at the back of it, but it didn't seem to be open for tourists so we had to give it a pass. That was a shame, because I'm sure that in clear, sunny weather you get a wonderful panoramic view of the old town section from the top of Tall Herman's Tower.
|
Monika: . Another church we visited was crowded with light blue ponchos taking pictures although a sign seemed to indicate, no picture taking. So we asked about picture taking and were told that it was ok as long as we did not use flash. |
Bob: Continuing along the heights to the edge of a bluff overlooking the harbor, Monika and I took a series of pictures of the town laid out below us. In the distance we could even see the bright yellow smokestack of our ship peeking out of the fog with the big blue capital "C" in the middle of it. We curled around to make a complete circle of the heights and finally exited at the Kiek in de Kok (peek in the kitchen) tower back into the lower section of the old town. |
Monika: We finally came to a beautiful overlook, where the old city lay below us and in the distance we could see the yellow smokestack of our ship. Blue sky with no rain would have made it the perfect picture, but I guess you can't have everything. But even with the rain, we kept taking pictures and trying to keep our cameras as much out of the rain as possible. |
Bob: Working our way back along Pikk street, we passed many fine examples of houses that may have dated from the Hanseatic times because certainly their architecture reminded me of what I had just seen in Hamburg, which was one of the premier German Hanseatic cities. We stopped in at the House of the Brotherhood of Black Heads, which turned out to be a very dimly lit and old-looking church or chapel of some kind. This church was different because it featured long wooden galleries running down the full length of either side of the rather long, narrow church. Flash photography was again not allowed, but I used the Intelligent ISO setting on my camera and by bracing it very carefully managed to take acceptable pictures of the interior despite having exposure times of up to one and a half seconds! |
Monika: From the overlook, we walked back into the old part of the city and stopped in another very old church. Of course, all kind of old houses also demanded our attention, including a house that had they bust of a man in glasses up on top, so that he could continue to keep track of his neighbors. |
Bob: We continued down Pikk street past the "Three Sisters", a set of three old Hanseatic trading buildings built right against each other that look kind of like identical triplets, except that they are storehouses rather than children. Pikk street exits the old town section at Fat Margaret's Tower, a very large, well-built bastion at the North end of the old walled city. By this time we were thoroughly cold, soaked, and running out of time, so we quickly doubled back along the lower town wall back to the Viru gate and then followed the GPS back to our bus stop. The shuttle bus was waiting exactly as promised and we gratefully climbed into its warm, dry interior for the short ride back to the ship. There we hung up our coats to dry and I turned on the computer to see if I could get a free WiFi connection. Son of a gun, when I pointed my computer at Tallinn I did get an unencrypted signal at about 34% strength, but that was good enough to sign in and check our email accounts. Having such a weak connection slowed down the process of answering the folks who had written us in the last few days, but I managed to get all the important emails answered before our ship left the dock and ended my session by pivoting around and breaking my line-of-sight WiFi connection with the mainland. So if you visit Tallinn, take your computer and WiFi card and enjoy the free Internet surfing! But when we went up on deck to take pictures of our departure, I got the unpleasant surprise that many of the buttons on my camera had stopped functioning. Most critically, the zoom had stopped working and the shutter release button was also not functioning, so I basically couldn't take a picture. Fortunately Monika had her camera and it was still working, so we did get the picture. I took the battery and SD card out of my camera and left the door open so that hopefully it would dry out, and then we went to dinner and had another wonderful meal with our tablemates while our ship glided out of port. Afterwards I settled in for an evening of journal writing while Monika enjoyed the evening show, a comedian if I understood correctly. Ultimately we fell into bed, and I at least was fervently hoping my camera would recover for the next day's visit in St. Petersburg. |
Monika: We finally reached the other side of the wall with the largest tower called "Fat Margeret" for obvious reasons. By now it was 4:30 and the last bus left at 5. So we hastened back to the bus stop to catch the bus back to the ship.
|
| Index |
| Map of Baltic Cruise |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||