Domina City Hotel Tallinn

... brought back with him. It was 6am. After an embarrassing 45 minutes of lying there, 43 minutes of chitchat and the other 2 minutes of you-know-what, we hear the boy apologising, "Sorry, that's never happened before".(Note the title of this stays blog) ! We then both decided that this was our queue to get the hell out, whilst giggling obviously along the way, to the en suite. We quickly packed, had some breakfast then headed for the bus station to go to Russia.<br>

... station, where we bought bus tickets for our next leg, before walking along the river Emagoji and enjoying a coffee in the main town square.<br><br>The bus left Tartu for Valga (aka Vulgar&#8230;) at 12:30 and some 90km later we were dropped off on the side of the road in the pouring rain. If you&#8217;ve ever been to a New Zealand town or city when an All Black test match is being shown on TV, or the AFL grand final televised in Ozzie ...

... this Tom fellow I keep hearing about. Some of the sights I checked while searching for Tom were the Old Town Pharmacy, St. Catherine's Passage, Fat Margaret's Tower to name but a few. <br><br>From Fat Margaret's Tower, I decided to walk the outside of the city walls for a different perspective. I could see the ideal spot for some great photos, but it was all fenced off. Not so, I thought, I'll find a ...

... buildings in the old town. Opposite it, perhaps rather unfortunately, is an 'infamous' toilet - a modern contraption bearing a passing resemblance to an old jukebox that cost the Estonian tax-payers 2 million Krune, and apparently, hardly ever works. The lower town seems more fun, and whilst we were there, were hosting Old Town Days and rather incongruously, a modern outdoor stage set up in the market square. There were musical ...

... situated just outside the Old Town, below the castle up on the hill. So my next station was up there. Here by the castle I finally started to notice more people. But to be fair, those were mostly foreigners who were coming here to see that what Tallinn was mainly famous for. The weather was still dour and windy, and even increasingly cool, so most of the tourists were pretty well wrapped up. Back home they would call it autumn. But I didn't mind. I enjoyed myself in a T-shirt in this ...

... the Red Army. Later that same year Germany attacked (Russia) & thus Estonia, and conscripted 38,000 Estonians into the German army. Then these 2 armies fought it out - in Estonia - with Estonians fighting Estonians in their own land. On one night during the war, 300 Russian planes bombed Tallinn. They destroyed 50% of the area of the city, 10% of the Old Town. In one night. This is such a very beautiful city and with buildings dating from the 10th century, how sad it must have ...

... transport and access to the museums around town. The people looked tired and not very friendly. Suspicious even, but I guess that comes form eons of occupation, the Russians or Soviets being the last in a long line of occupiers. [Check out the Museum of Occupations at www.okupatsioon.ee .] The men were handsome, the young ones anyways.... hmmmm As we crossed the city heading towards the palace and museum, the skies literally ...

... few hours before Benfica from Portugal....Of course I was excited. When we arrived in Tallinn it was all snowed and since we had 4 hours until our bus to Saint Petesburg departed, we decided to take a brief walk in Tallinn and taste some local food. We liked a lot Tallinn and were sad to leave...But Saint Petesburg was waiting for us.

... supposedly a "traditional" Estonian restaurant ... but if this were so, why were they playing jazz and Spanish music? <br><br>After, we took a quick walk before returning to the hostel. I did some journal writing before retiring for the night. It was a boring evening... but I have to admit that it got a lot more interesting when Magda (ahhhh ... memories of that name ... see Euro 2006 blog entry "Sometimes the best drug is a ...

So do you know where Tallinn is then? Until we started planning I have to say I didn´t. Upon arrival (exc Stansted) we were greeted by sniffer dogs and weather from Leeds. Estonia has already become the land of cute words with a currency (the EEK) and Pood (shop). Getting the bus from the airport you are driven through the new part of the city which it has to be said looks like any other really but we alighted in the city centre and began ...