Tallinn: It's all about the Old Town

Unfortunately, our time in Scandinavia had to come to an end but we would be rewarded by being able to visit the three former Soviet Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. First up was to be Estonia, more specifically it's capital, Tallinn. The only drawback was we had to get back on a ferry to get there. Thankfully this trip was only 3 hours long and a lot less choppy. We arrived in a soaking wet Tallinn quite late in the evening, so just had time to get to the supermarket, cook up some fish fingers and beans and head to bed with the hope that the weather would have cleared up by the morning. We did have to dice with death in the kitchen when a crazy Asian lady thought it would be a good idea to put tin foil in the microwave, with sparks flying we had to intervene, even though she didn't have a clue what we were saying.

Well, the weather hadn't cleared, in fact, it was worse than it was the night before, which gave us a perfect excuse to have a long, hard earned lie in. Fortunately, after tucking into our Chocolate Shells for breakfast, it had stopped raining and we headed out and about to explore the old town. The sun came out as we headed into Town Hall Square, which was crammed with people browsing the market and watching the locals make their crafts and build a boat. We headed on through the cobbled streets, avoiding the crowd outside the rather rough looking Georgian bar and out into Freedom Square where there is a monument dedicated to the Estonians who died during their War of Independence from 1918 to 1920. Heading uphill we came across the rather impressive Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, which is an onion domed Russian Orthodox cathedral, we debated whether or not to go inside and have a look but decided against the idea, preferring to visit St, Basil's when we get to Moscow. With all the walking making us hungry, we decided to treat ourselves to lunch in a restaurant for once, deciding on the pub that serves pancakes recommended by our map. We headed into the gloomy but busy pub, grabbed a table and ordered our Pancakes, which claimed they were traditional Estonian ones but we weren't too sure about that. Then the wait began. 50 minutes they took!! When they eventually got brought to the table by the 'extremely cheery' waitress we'd both lost our hunger but tucked in anyway. We had one with smoked chicken and feta cheese and one with mushrooms and blue cheese and despite the wait, they were well worth the money, costing only €5 each and being huge portions. With full bellies we did our tour of the souvenir shops looking for the obligatory pin badge, which can be rather stressful when after something specific, we should have just gone for magnets! On our way back to the hostel we picked up some Chicken for dinner that was reduced as it was on its last day of life, how bad could it be? Terrible! After stinking the kitchen out with the rotten chicken, we were just left with a large quantity of rice and some veg, which was actually rather tasty. Our night was spent wrestling with Estonian wifi trying to upload some photos but was a fruitless exercise, we could have had 10 pancakes for the time would have taken them to upload!

With nothing planned for our morning, we had yet another lie in, followed by more unnecessarily sugary children's cereals. We then headed out at Midday in order to catch the free walking tour, which are so handy when on a tight budget like we are. It was very informative and enjoyable also helping to give a background on a country that Charlotte and I didn't really know a great deal about before hand. We spent our afternoon wandering the streets on what our guide joked was the one day of summer Estonia gets a year. We were taken to 2 impressive viewing platforms giving great views across the city and towards the harbour. After grabbing a lunch of what were Estonias take on sausage rolls, with mustard inside, we headed for the flea market behind the train station. There was plenty of interesting characters around as well as some interesting merchandise. It was mostly fruit and veg covered in flies but the stalls were punctuated by tiny shops selling old soviet memorabilia. Clutching on to our belongings for dear life, we headed for the exit. Heading back towards the old town, we strolled through a park giving us views of the old town walls and castle and headed up through a steep, deserted pathway to the top of the hill. Following the cobbled streets down and out again, we headed back to the comfort of our hostel and managed to pick up 2 days worth of dinner and 2 days worth of breakfast and a 4 bottles of Estonian beer for £12.

For our last day in Tallin we fancied a walk along the coast. We headed first for what we thought was the former soviet prison in Tallinn but didn't realise until writing this blog it was actually the Linnahall, which was a sports venue, mainly used for sailing during the 1980 Moscow Olympics but is now disused, overgrown and heavily vandalised. Turns out the prison was slightly further along the coast! We followed round in the opposite direction to the prison, past the harbour and the "floating restaurant" attached to a crane and headed along the prom, resisting the temptation to rent a go kart and go for a spin. Without wanting to venture too far out of the city, we headed up through what seemed to be a large German war cemetery and then somehow stumbled across the American residence of Tallinn. Eventually we found our way back to civilization and were faced with a long walk back into town. After arriving back and enjoying our Tuna and Pasta dinner, we packed our bags ready to leave the next day and headed out to the viewing platforms to get a late night view across the city.

Tallinn was a lovely place visit and very easy to walk with most of the sights situated in the walled Old Town. Another place that may be worth a visit during the winter, when the snows would cover the buildings and make it seem like a fairytale.

We now move on to Baltic State number 2, Latvia and its capital city, Riga.

James and Charlotte

Helsinki: When do the sea wobbles stop?

For once we didn't have to be up at the crack of dawn to catch our transport, instead we had the temptation of the free breakfast that was offered to everyone, which was definitely worth crawling out of bed for! After stuffing down more than we could manage we had the long walk, carrying 2 backpacks each, 50 minutes across Stockholm to the Viking Line terminal to catch our ferry to Helsinki. After a 2 hour wait to board we got to exploring the ship, which was rather large and had a cafe, nightclub, music bar, casino and video games room, which Charlotte informed me I was too old to enter. Fortunately, due to some forward thinking when we booked the ferry, we'd made a reservation at the Viking Buffet, which was a a smorgasbord (nice Swedish word there) of local and international foods. Well, if we thought we were full from breakfast, we were pretty much overflowing from dinner and the unlimited beer and soft drinks on tap didn't help! Afterwards we waddles to our piccolo (small) but cosy room. We had to forget about sleeping though, the weather had closed in and we were hurtling straight though a rain storm, which made for a very bumpy and wobbly ride. We found it impossible to relax, so got up and headed back out for another couple of circuits of the ship, eventually going back to the room and forcing ourselves to sleep about 2 in the morning. How we kept our dinners down is unknown to me but somehow we made it with full bellies and very wobbly legs.

The hostel we had chosen was only a 2 minute walk from the ferry terminal, so it was nice to stumble off and into some comfort. Unlike most hostels we've been in so far, we've had to wait for check-in but despite only being half past 9 in the morning, we got our room straight away and headed straight up for a much needed lie down on dry land. Not for too long though, as we were keen to get out and explore the city.

We headed through the bustling Market Square, which has a daily market selling food, jewellery and souvenirs. And located right on the seafront. After, scouring the shopping streets and close by sights, followed by a chance meeting with THOSE Spaniards from our room in Stockholm, we headed back to our room for a much needed afternoon nap, which then turned into a full blown sleep. 5 hours later, we woke in the early evening, so just had time to head to a supermarket and pick up dinner, chilli and rice but nowhere near as nice as our mums make. After a quick evening stroll and some hankering for a sweet treat we picked up 3 Mars bars, which we hastily ate when we got back in. With Independance Day on the TV we had a quiet evening in.

Having lost most of the day the day before, we wanted to be out early but couldn't resist the lie-in and the peace and quiet that our private room gave us. Eventually, we got out on the streets of sunny Helsinki, still with our sea legs, at 11 o'clock and headed to the furthest attraction, which was the Olympic Stadium used for the Olympic Games in 1952. It probably wasn't worth the walk, as there wasn't much to see in the area and the stadium was quite old fashioned and closed up. So we headed through the Central Park and past a lake where the locals were out Paddle Boarding. We stopped off in the main centre to pick up some lunch, an apple, a mandarin each and a large bar of Finnish made Milk Chocolate to share. After lunch, we walked up to the very impressive Rock Church, which is pretty much just made from rocks and glass. We went in and listened to a man playing piano. When he finished a piece I thought I only whispered "should we applaud?" to Charlotte but the lady infront seemed to find it quite funny and said "you can but your not supposed to". As the evening approached we headed to Kaivopuisto, which is a park located in the city, with a sea wall to walk along. Here we watched as people took part in Bungee Jumping and took photos of the Helsinki skyline across the water. All that was left was to head home and cook up our Chicken Curry for dinner and get a good nights sleep after a very busy day.

With not a huge amount to see in Helsinki, we had almost done it all so somehow we ended up with what was pretty much a free day. Still, not wanting to waste it as it was our last, we got up, had the biggest bowl of cornflakes ever and headed out. After a thorough browse through the market where nothing really took our fancy, we meandered through the streets in the blazing heat. With not much else to do we headed back to the hostel, caught up on our huge pile of washing and had a local Finnish beer in the hostel restaurant. To keep the day simple, we had our most basic dinner yet, noodles with a rather expensive French stick and garlic butter.

Although Helsinki doesn't have a huge amount to offer, I know Finland does as a whole and we both can't wait to come back and enjoy the Arctic winter.

We now head out of beautiful Scandinavia and into the Baltic States. Tallinn is first up.

James and Charlotte

Stockholm: If it's not the Germans, it's the Spanish

Another early start beckoned for our 5 hour train ride North to Stockholm. Why we got to Copenhagen Central Station so early is beyond me as we spent half an hour dodging pickpockets and an hour sat on the platform getting rather chilly. Eventually the train pulled in and we settled down for the ride in much better comfort than a Eurolines coach. It was a rather uneventful journey apart from the impressive Oresund Bridge that passes between Denmark and Sweden and the 2 young girls next to us throwing up half the time but the time soon passed. We arrived in a rather grey looking Stockholm and had our first directions related issue, fortunately Charlottes's trusty compass came to the rescue.

The supermarket was the first port of call as ever and if we thought Denmark was expensive, Sweden was even worse. After 45 minutes trying to come up with different dinner ideas then shunning them for their expense, we eventually plumped for beef burgers, pasta and a funny, round sweet bread thingy. The pouring rain kept us in for the rest of the evening.

We spent our first morning catching up on washing and writing up the Copenhagen blog. Eventually emerging into daylight around 1 o'clock. We headed to the tight and touristy streets of Gamla Stan, which is the old town of Stockholm and spent a good few hours in and out of souvenir shops to find a suitable pin badge to add to our ever growing collection. We lunched by the quayside on a ready made panini and a massive bag of crisps which definitely filled a hole. We trawled along the waters edge for a few miles looking for a place to grab a beer but everywhere seemed far too upmarket for us commoners. Fortunately we stumbled across a suitable watering hole, had unfortunately, a non-Swedish beer and speculated who the man on the big fat boat infront of us may be. We carried on along and took a huge diversion through affluent suburbs of Stockholm. By the time we got back to the hostel it had turned into a beautiful evening, we cooked up our pasta and baked beans and prepared our cheese sandwiches for the next 2 days under the watchful eyes of a horde of Germans playing cards. An evening stroll was on the cards for us, so we wandered down to the waterside and watched the sunset. During the day, our room had had 5 new arrivals, in the form of a group of Spaniards, who decided to get in at an ungodly hour and wake the room up.

After being surprised to see the Spaniards up so early, we crawled out of bed and out into the morning rain. Not letting this dampen our spirits we headed down to the harbour where we caught a ferry to the island of Vaxholm. With the ferry costing 75kr (£5) per person one way, we were happy to risk the trip even though we weren't sure what there was to do on the island. 70 minutes later and after a smooth ride, we arrived in Vaxholm. Still raining. We weren't sure where we were going, so as we do best, we just picked a road and headed down it. We picked a placed by the sea to eat our sandwiches and biscuits, which was nice in the sun, to see all the small boats coming and going from the tiny, floating station. We saw one young girl get off and meet up with a boy but not until her parents, who had dropped her off in the boat had moved well out sight. It was quite amusing later, on our walk around town to see the young girl being introduced to the parents. We moved on and followed the waterside looking for the tourist information but got distracted by a sign for mini golf but we were put off by the lack of adults playing when we arrived. Just past the mini golf was a park, which had a roundabout powered by pedals, this we couldn't resist despite the fact that this was obviously for kids and both jumped on to have a go. With the small town covered we headed back to the harbour to catch our ferry home, just hopping on the next ferry we thought would be the same as the one we arrived on. How wrong we were, for some unknown reason the fare had increased to 110 kr!! We decided to head back to the hostel for the early evening to try and beat the huge gang of Germans to the kitchen, however when we got back, the kitchen was empty but we stupidly didn't use this to our advantage. Instead, putting the photos up on our previous blog. We then battled through the waves to try and cook our beans and noodles, which we eventually did despite the mess the kitchen had been left in. Another broken sleep ensued, due to the Spaniards fancying another late night.

We headed out the next morning to Djurgarden which is a huge island, covered pretty much entirely by a park. We headed through the rather disappointing beginning which houses a large theme park and the ABBA museum and into the peace and tranquility of the countryside in the centre of the city. After eating the remainder of our cheese sandwiches sat on a log in the scorching sun, we circumnavigated the sea wall which took us a good few hours. After a long day in the heat, we picked up a couple of pizzas for dinner and went for our now regular evening walk to see the sunset again.

Our final day was a cold and wet one. We walked to the Viking Line ferry terminal to get our route for the following day and then headed back in a big circle over a rather large bridge, which wasn't Charlotte's favourite thing we've done so far! We had a cozy evening in reading our books while the rain lashed down outside

We had been hoping that the Spaniards would leave before us but they checked out the same morning, the only consolation we took, was that we would never have to see them again...

We were really excited to catch the ferry to our next stop, Helsinki.

James and Charlotte

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