Back on a Boat

 Patch had decided to take day off university, to spend some time with us, for which we are grateful. We decided to literally push the boat out and catch a ferry over to Tallinn in Estonia, which is just a 2 hour crossing, and cost just £25 per person return. Our outward crossing was at 10.30am which gave both Patch and Perdita the chance to have a cheeky little lie in.

A 20 minute tram ride to the ferry terminal saw us arrive in good time to go get a coffee and pastries for breakfast before we boarded the ferry, which was certainly in a lot better condition than the Irish Ferries I used to go to Ireland on whilst going on fishing holidays, many moons ago. Everything was very clean and manicured, in  fact I felt like I was the scruffiest thing on the ship.

On arriving at Tallinn, it was only a short time until we disembarked and started the 20 minute walk up to Vera Gate, which was our closest entrance point to the Old Town. As soon as we entered the Old Town Perdita's eyes lit up, straight in front of us was the 1st Souvenir (TAT) shop, and she was in like a Jack Russell down a rabbit hole. Ten minutes later she came out with a smile from ear to ear and 2 paper bags, which contained the compulsory shot glass and postcard.

The town itself reminded me of most of the other former Russian state capitals we have visited previously, with narrow cobblestone streets and tall brightly painted house fronts and the walls around the town with the beautifully architechtured gateways leading into them. They all remind me of the towns used for filming in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. A complete change from Helsinki which although it was ruled over by Russia, gained it's independence around the turn of century and was virtually rebuilt due to the damage caused in the process.

We followed the quaint streets up to the cobblestoned town hall square and obviously the town hall, which again looked predictably like others we had seen, and I do mean that in a nice way. In the centre of the square is a circular paving stone, about a meter in diameter, from standing on which you can see the 4 church towers within the walls of Tallinn old town.

From there we meandered the  streets until we reached Freedom square, which is the cross over point where the old town subsides and it's newer more modern part takes over. At the top of the square is the Freedom monument, a big glass cross to commemorate escaping the clutches of Russian guardianship, rising behind it was Toompea hill, which is the hist point within the old city.

We returned to the narrow streets of the old town, to find a route up to the top of Toompea Hill, passing a small square, where an ice rink had been set up, which quite a lot of local children where making use of, whilst listing to the classic western music of the 80's and 90's played over the speaker system, to keep them motivated. One place we didn't pass was a little cafe, one of the few open, which were charging €1.5 for a coffee and €2.5 for a hot chocolate with marshmallows, but more importantly had a little girls room for the females amongst us to powder thier noses.

From the top of Toompea Hill you got to see the best views over both the quaint old town rooftops and the sprawling new town on the outside of the old city walls. Also found at the top is the parliament building along the the leading up to it quite a few grand building used as foreign consolotes and the worthy Primo's residence.

We picked our way down the icey steps very carefully from the top of Toompea Hill towards the railway station, our destination was the very modern looking building behind it, which we reckoned to be the Market Hall. When we got there after about 15 minutes we were not disappointed, it was a huge modern building segregated into different section fro fruit&veg, meats, fish etc. It has obviously been very recently built or at least majorly refurbished and had a large selection of chic cafés, bistro and restaurants. I love looking around markets looking at the colours and varieties of the produce being sold, but the flower just as we were heading out were fabulouse

With daylight fading fast we decided to head of back to the ferry, we were a bit early but the terminal was warm the beer cool and the chairs really comfortable.

Good bye Tallinn, hope to see you again.

Pongo,Perdita and Patch signing off for now.