Ecoland Hotel Tallinn

... cathedral completed by the Tsar in 1900. Extremely ornate, I hear music as I enter. I am privileged to walk in and observe a wedding. The bride & groom have crowns over their heads being held 6 inches above by two groomsmen. It is entertaining as they walk around the church with the groomsmen following. The one carrying the bride’s can’t figure out how to do it without stepping the on train of the dress. Very pretty ceremony.

Town Hall below was built ...

... hostel was a short walk (less than 5mins) from the tram stop and quite easy to find. It is really cute and well decorated/painted. I am sharing a room with 2 other people and one spare bed. The Vana Tom hostel is so centrally located to the old town that it literally takes 2 mins to get to the main square!!! I love a great location. Since it was still early, I dropped my pack off and grabbed the camera and off I went to explore ...

... but in Tallinn we saw a large sign at the railway station announcing a major track restoration project by the EU. In Tallinn we got off and our hotel was only a few blocks away. Our time in Estonia is just about over. Tomorrow we meet with a new person (to us) Artur Aleksandrov. He'll meet us for breakfast at 7:30 am. And, hopefully, we'll see Toomas.

... A group of four German tourists and me reached the intersection with the Pagari tägav street and crawled under a vault there. It turned out we parked right in front of the former headquarters of the NKVD, and later KBG, where perceived enemies of the state had once been treated to a friendly interrogation and then either shot for the good measure or sent to Siberian gulags. We were neither shot nor given a free ride to Siberia, but were instead treated to some strengthening wind, which ...

Théodora est grande, mais elle nordvision est sotte. Tu ne partageras nordvision pas ce que tu as nordvision trouvé en la compagnie d'un nordvision sot. Qui se sauve du nordvision soleil, aura toujours froid. Il nordvision n'y a pas deux messes nordvision pour un sourd. A bonne nordvision tête, cent mains.

... I don't remember dates) the Estonians gained their freedom from Russia, who promised never to invade them again. Then in 1941 or something around there, the Russians decided the Estonians needed assistance to get rid of the Germans, which they did not ask for the help and did not need the help, and the Russians again took control of Estonia. The problem was, they never left after rendering this "help". They finally regained their freedom in, I believe ...

... was no palace, not that we could tour anyways. We walked around the formal gardens of the museum (which is the "Palace" we could and did tour) and then headed into the park. In the rain. Getting wet. I have taken a series of photo's of flowers in almost every port we have been in. I will make an entry just for those soon. But the garden was lovely, and Carol asked one of the gardeners if there indeed was another Palace to ...

Finally we were able to grab the plane to get to Estonia... We had to wake up at 4 oclock, take a flight to Berlin and wait over there for 5 hours till we got our final plane to Estonia. As you can imagine it was a long journey. It was funny that next to our plane in Barajas I found the plane of Getafe Football team which had beated ...

... but I was too tired to argue. The Old Town Backpacker's Hostel, my first hostel experience since I was seven, lies behind a non-descript door in Tallinn's historic Old Town. I rang the bell and three Germans answered, none of whom, I determined after some confussion, worked there, but they let me in and I got settled. Fortified with the remainder of a baguette from New York, I headed out to explore the Old Town. I left my guidebook at ...

... city, besides the whole rioting and anti-Russian feelings. The city turned out to be all I had hoped for. Gorgeous, sunny days walking around the old medieval town along ragged cobblestone streets beneath high stone towers coupled with the least painful embassy visit I had ever seen to result in a fabulous three day break from the hectic bustle of Moscow on the verge of high tourist season. The highlight of ...