Hotel Meriton Old Town Tallinn

... amazing and full of interesting stories from an underground Homeless City to warfare from the 1600 to roughly the 1950's. In the evening it was someone's birthday at the hostel also, so we all played table-football and the Wii whilst having a few social drinks.

(31-10) We had gone to bed at a reasonable time the previous night as to be rested for our longish journey to Russia, but were rudely awoken by a Finnish teenage boy and an Estonian girl who he had ...

... to the skill of the chef, who we affectionately nicknamed big momma. Over dinner we decided to do the trip to Riga the hard way…

The hard way included a 05:45 wake up call for the 3-hour local stopping train (20 stops) to Tartu in the south east of Estonia, approx. 189km from Tallinn. Tartu is the second biggest city in Estonia but had a sleepy small town feel to it. We walked the 2km from Tartu train station to the main ...

... to all.

See you soon!

Bernie’s Highlights: I loved the whole country!
Bernie’s Lowlights: We weren’t there long enough.

Steph’s Highlights: The lunch experience was exactly what I wanted all along this trip.
Steph’s Lowlights: Paying $3 for what turned out to be a shot glass of wine!

Rebecca’s Highlights: The castle was cool. I played in a castle today!
Rebecca’s Lowlights: I can’t even think of one today!

... 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 ...

... him where he was at the time. The next room showed film archive of a meeting of Estonians in 1989, and various speeches. One said "the question for us in Estonia is not whether to be or not to be, but how to be". It was fascinating. One of the things we'd read about these Baltic countries and also observed, is that freedom has come at a great price and caused a great divide. Some, generally young & multi-lingual, have done very well out of an international capitalist life. But ...

... also some of the aussies we met in riga. sat there for a while then moved on to another bar with jason and some locals for another shandy and some more laughs. headed back to the hostel in the wee hours of the morning, got our head down after a busy day and night.

... going to Russia however has been dashed with the news that, as a travel agent says, 'Russia really isn't getting along with Australia' and as such ´getting a visa will take at least 10 days - something we weren't really ready to do. Indeed it would have been easier and quicker to for us to head back to iran, but Christina wasnt having any of that. This however has meant we have approximately 4 weeks to go anywhere in ...

... the only part I found remotely interesting.

Back to the old town to use the internet. Pricey, at 4 Euros per hour. Another example of tourist-gouging - there are many cities with higher costs of living than Tallinn that have internet for anywhere from 1-3 Euros per hour.

We chilled at the hostel for a bit and then went for dinner. We managed to find a slightly less-tacky place than the norm in Tallinn. It ...

La primera parada ha sido en Tallinn, una ciudad preciosa, como habreis visto en las fotos. Llama la atencion, ademas de las calles, la cantidad de tiendas de artesania, galerias y la decoracion en todos los locales y cafeterias, todo cuidado al minimo detalle. Las terrazas estan llenas de flores de vivos colores, las calles todas adoquinadas ...