Days 40-42, July 21-23, Tallin Estonia

Monday, July 21 - Tallin, Estonia

We arrived in Estonia, rented our car and headed to Tallin city mid-afternoon. There is a different feeling here. The area is not as economically ahead as Finland and Sweden, and seemingly a bit more disorganized at least in terms of car rental experience even though it is with the same company we have been using.

When we arrive in Tallin, the streets are quite confusing, particularly at the intersections and could use some roundabout updating where four or more streets intersect. We know where we want to go, but every street leading to the guesthouse has no entry posted. We finally ignore the one no entry sign, weave past street construction to arrive at a very stern looking building. Not sure this looks appealing, but it is very centrally located, and after check-in which was also a bit disorganized seems fine. We are given a double room and share a wc and separate shower with four other rooms. Not great, but for $50.00 a night it's clean, well located, provides breakfast and has a locked courtyard for the car.

We hole up in our room the rest of the day taking care of electonic business.

Tuesday, July 22 - Tallin

We spend the day enjoying the old medieval city of Tallin, surrounded in part by still and existing wall and towers. The only drawback are the cruise ships disembarking 4-6000 people a day into the area. Throngs of people clog the narrow streets. Nevertheless we wove around and through them all through the city visitings points of interest. Prices here are notably less than sweden, Finland and Russis. Beautiful bouquets of flowers and shopping bag of pasteries and fruits can be purchased for 5-8 Euros.

This past weekend, there was an international choir competition in the Baltics. Our highlight today was the opportunity to hear the Russian choir in one of the churches at noon. The singing and acoustics were wonderful.

Anout 2:00 pm we found ourselves a quiet garden restaurant at the Merchant House Hotel, where we spent nearly three hours, drinking wine, eating, and using a fairly fast wifi. When we left the restaurant the hoards had subsided towards the signalling ships, and we were able to walk comfortably through the streets retracing some of our original steps where we were in throngs earlier in the day.

Another great day!

Wednesday, July 23 - Off to Tartu

We are just about ready to leave for the day and heading for Tartu. More later.

All is Well with the Worrall Travel Rs in Estonia