Exploring Medieval and Modern Tallinn, Estonia

The sun rose at 4:44 AM today, welcoming us to Tallinn, Estonia. Tallinn is an old city established in medieval times. Today's Estonia, including old towns like Tallinn, fuses modern and medieval- beautiful old buildings and traditions combined with a growing tech sector and modern buildings. It was here that Skype and Spotify started. According to the Wall Street Journal, Estonia produces more tech start-ups per population than any other country in Europe. It is a city with charm by the bucket load and its old town is a UNESCO site.

Walking into the old town, we passed many cute shops and restaurants, including this colorful bicycle-themed  bistro.

 

We walked on cobblestoned streets, headed up to the walled Upper Town, or Toompea, feeling like we stepped back into medieval times. We meandered through narrow alley ways, arches, and tunnels into the maze of this charming city.

We entered the town square where there was a huge open air market of local crafts, surrounded by beautiful  old gabled buildings.

Page bought a pair of beautiful hand painted earrings from "Pippin" who designed and made the earrings. She packaged them and signed her name for Page and drew a cat on the bag.  Many of the crafts people dressed in traditional costumes.

 As we neared the top of the hill we came upon the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox Church.

 The view of the city was stunning- red roofs, "Old Thomas" the rooster weather vane, and even a proud sea gull eyeing all the visitors as if to say "Welcome to my realm"!

We walked back down through the village encountering several interesting things along the way- an old wooden pig planter, the entrance way to Balthasar's Garlic Restaurant with a dessert called Jalkiruoat- Garlic ice cream on a bed of rhubarb with fresh strawberries, honey garlic, and a passion fruit caramel (needless to say, we didn't stop to try it), and several pretty doors. Knights in shining armor, charming door fronts and medieval dragon window ornamentation- so many things that make Tallinn such a charming town.

Tallinn is famous for their marzipan (and things made from linen and wool). We stopped at a marzipan confection shop. Marzipan candies are made from almond paste and are molded into a variety of flowers, buildings, fruits, cartoon characters, etc.  We tried the marzipan and decided they look prettier than they taste..

We noticed two interesting modes of transportation on the street- these beautiful carriage horses with longs woven French braids and an old Chrysler Imperial car decorated for a bride and groom getting married in the church nearby.

As we walked back to port, we noticed another huge ship (on the left) docked next to our "small" ship on the right. Traveling with 900 passengers seems a lot, but imagine traveling with 2,000 or more!

After another scrumptious Viking dinner, the evening ended with the Viking performance, The Long and Winding Road,  on the ship's pool deck backed up with a live band. Adam, Constantine, and Eric, 3 very talented young, professional musicians on tour with Viking, performed a medley of Beatles' hits. The sunset at 10:09 PM as the ship sailed for Gydnia, Poland (412 nautical miles).