Tallinn, Estonia

The Baltic Cruise


Tallinn, Estonia

Tallinn is one of the best preserved medieval cities among the Nordic cities. Our ship offered a shuttle service (for a fee of course) to the old town section of the city. Given that the taxis have a reputation for ripping off tourists, we opted for the shuttle. Once we got off the shuttle, we walked through the old gate and were back in time in the Old Town. The city was a medieval stronghold and there is a huge wall around the city.

On Pikk St. (the main street through Old Town) we passed St. Olav’s Church which boasted to have the tallest spire in Scandinavia for some time. It has 234 steps to the top of the tower. We opted not to climb the steps. Instead we walked up this old cobblestone street and passed some of the notable spots such as the ministry of police building (which was prior to 1991) the headquarters of the KGB. We saw the Puhavaimu kirik (Church of the Holy Ghost) built in the 1600’s. We found Town Hall Square which was formerly a marketplace. There is a Town Hall (which is now a museum) in the square and a pharmacy (Raeapteek) that dates from the 1400’s. We went to St. Nicholas’ Church which was built in the 13th century. The area around the church was bombed during World War II and all of the area was completely flattened.

Some of the other notable places we saw were the Russian Cathedral and Toompea Castle. Tallinn (and all of Estonia) is highly influenced by Russia and about 40% of the population is from Russia. We saw the Dome Church which has a lot of medieval coats of arms which represent some of the wealthy merchant families.

We stopped for some coffee and a sweet raspberry pastry at a small café. The young girl who was there said that the square and area becomes very busy when all of the cruise ships come in and lunch is usually the busiest time. She spoke very good English and apparently English is the language they all want to learn in school with Russian being one of the major languages spoken.

After feeling refreshed from the coffee and sweet treat, we headed on. We walked around the Old Town, up and down cobblestone streets looking at some of the very old buildings. Some have been restored while others seem to be just deserted. One of the things we noticed was the number of security cameras on each of the street corners. Don’t forget that Estonia used to be completely under Soviet rule for over 50 years. In 2004 they joined the European Union, but they won’t adopt the Euro until 2010. Their flag was restored to them in 1990. The current currency is the Estonian Kronni and the exchange rate for us was 10 Kr to $1. The other interesting thing was to see how many embassies we passed right in Old Town. The U.S. Embassy was not one of them however and apparently opted to build further out.

We wandered around all morning and decided it was time for lunch. Instead of some of the medieval themed restaurants in the square, we opted to actually give one of Rick Steves’ recommendations a try. So with map in hand we headed off to find the restaurant and that was no easy trick either given the Old Town wall and the curvy streets. But as luck would have it, we looked up and saw the cutest sign about an arched entry. It looked like an egg frying in in skillet. All of a sudden I realized that the name above the sign was the name of the restaurant we had been looking to find. The restaurant is called Vanaema Juures (“Grandma’s Place”). It’s very small. You go through the arch and then an arrow points you down. At that point you have to descend some small, steep steps into what looks like a cellar. I think Hank’s head bounced off the ceiling at least two times going down those steps! Being vertically challenged paid off for me this time! Downstairs, there were about 10 tables. You wondered how they got some of the furniture in there as they had some big pieces such as a wardrobe. We started lunch with an appetizer that we split of meatballs and horseradish. It was very good. The meatballs were flavorful without being overly spicy. We each then opted for the “traditional Estonian lunch” which was port roast with sauerkraut. The meal was served with potatoes and pickled too. It was absolutely delicious! With lunch we also each had a dark Estonian beer. For dessert we split a piece of “Grandma’s cake” which was a rhubarb cake. It was a great way to end the meal - very light. I’ll have to give it to our buddy Rick Steves - this was a really good restaurant! Feeling completely full, we ventured back upstairs (Hank watched his head this time) and resumed our sight seeing.

The weather was really humid. Between the beer, the food and the sun, we decided it was time to look around and shop before heading back to the ship for an afternoon snooze. We found our Tallinn magnet, got the postcards and bought a small Nordic looking figure for a shelf. By now the Old Town marketplace is really full of passengers for the four cruise ships in port. We wanted back down the cobblestone streets and found our way out of the Old Town back to the shuttle pick up. We grabbed the last two seats on the bus and made our way back to the ship. By now it’s almost 3:00 p.m. so time to sit on the verandah, have a cold drink and watch the ships. We’ll be meeting our St. Petersburg group for dinner and martini’s later.

We can’t believe our cruise is already more than half-way over!