Our first stop--Tallin, Estonia

Yesterday was a great day on board the ship except for the major rocking during a wind and rain storm. You know it is bad when they have sea sickness bags by every elevator "just in case". I think I took one of the very few Dramamine's I have ever had. Luckily it helped and we fell asleep just fine. After another night of wonderful sleep aboard this new ship we set off on foot for Tallin, Estonia.

The history of Tallin in a nutshell is this: Centuries ago it had two feuding towns separated by a wall. The upper town on the hill is Toompea and was the seat of government and the lower town was a trading town with Danish, Swedish and German merchants who hired Estonians to do their labor. Two streets connect the 2 towns.

It had 2 centuries of Tsarist Russian rule and then 45 years under Soviet Union rule it has a distinct flavor of Russia trying to become modern. Estonia took back its country in 1991. Tallin has 2 distinct people; true Estonianans feel that they are a mix of Estonia and Finland and are blonde and fair, the other people who feel they are true Estonian are more Russian and Estonian.

All the churches were closed to the public as an international organ concert is being held here in a few days and the organists were practicing. If we could listen closely we could hear the organ music through the thick, walled walls of the churches.

We proceeded to do Rick Steves walking tour and weren't disappointed. He has a way of taking us to sights unknown and giving us the low down on what happened here and what happened there.



Estonia is also the sight of the ferry capsizing in 1994. A beautiful memorial to the hundreds who died is at the sight.







We are posting this at an internet cafe and are running out of time. Please excuse the haste in which this was posted. Tomorrow and the next day we will be in St. Petersburg, Russia.


Print this post