The Little Country That Can...Sort of
Place: Tallinn, Estonia
After 10 hours' bus ride, I arrived at the capital of Estonia, Tallinn (even past the country of Latvia, but I would return to Latvia later in this trip anyway).
First time in this trip, I had to take out my light jacket. Yes, it is that cool here (though not chilly), but I think it is good since I had too much sun in Greece earlier in this trip.
Unfortunately, comparing to Vilnius and Riga, Tallinn's long distance bus terminal is much further away from the center of the town (I should have gotten off at the ferry terminals). It is 2 km from the old town and I ended up walking all the way there with my huge backpack because I was not able to find a bus (and have no local currency).
There are a few (great, choices!) youth hostels in Tallinn old town. 'Let's Go' recommends both 'Tallinn Old Town Backpackers' (the cheaper one) and 'Oldhouse Guesthouse' (http://www.oldhouse.ee , a slightly more upscale one). I decided to go for the latter.
When the blonde lady looked at the computer screen and said "Yes, we still have beds available. You want a single room? It's 450 Estonian Kron (about 30 Euro)" Think about my experience in Vilnius hostel, I immediately said "Yes." Well, the bathroom is still shared and it seems that my next door is a room full of fraternity girls, but I should still have better sleep that night.
Estonia is the smallest country in the Baltics (with only 1.4 million people, though its land area is still bigger than Taiwan) and the capital city, Tallinn, has only about 400,000 people. It is located on the south side of Gulf of Finland, which makes it less than 100 km from Helsinki, Finland. Actually, there seems tons of ferries connecting Helsinki and Tallinn. I guess many Finns come here for a shopping daytrip.
In fact, Estonian language looks so odd, the only other one reads like it is Finnish. I am not sure how well Estonians and Finns can communicate with each others in their own language.
Estonia is also a great success story for a country from former Soviet Union. They do not only join E.U. in May 2004. This year, they just had whopping 12% GNP growth rate (based on annual projection) in the first quarter (now Taiwan must envy that...). Their recent big news is that the ferry liner, Tallink, just purchase another ferry line from Sweden, to become the first Baltic company actually buying a Scandinavian company (usually it is the other way around). That seems to make Estonians very proud.
Tallinn's old town " Vanallinn" is quite small. You can walk around and finished them in 3 hours (and there are a lot of daytripper from cruiselines doing just that). Their central town hall square, Raekoja Plats, is nice looking but too touristy (there are even Irish bars and Texan steak house). However, just taking a few turns and walking uphill along Pikk Jaig, you can get to Toompea, the "uptown" of the old town area. In that small and quaint neighborhood, you can find Toompea Castle (now the seat of Estonian parliament) and the orthodox Nevsky Cathedral. Some vintage point gives a great Paronamic view of the lower town below. Beautiful.
With e-mails from some of you, I know that both North America and Europe are experiencing a severe heat wave. Here, right next to the Gulf of Finland, I was glad that I could enjoy such soothing cool summer, even just for a day or two.
For more info about Tallinn, you can click the following links:
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