Becola Adventures: Estonia- Tallinn and Tartu

Tallinn.

After some great adventures in the soviet republic, we decided we would head to the Baltic state, first stop Tallinn, Estonia. There is so much to do in the medieval old town and around, but we decided to spend our first day sleeping in and doing sweet nothing except finishing the seasons of Parks and Recreation :) after lots of travelling and ferries, we needed a day off...it was wonderful :)

When we actually got back to being tourists again we started our day, the way many one day tourists from Finland do, by touring the old town. I should mention that Tallinn is a very popular day trip from Helsinki for three reasons. Firstly, it is only 2 hours on the Ferry. Secondly, Tallinn is a magical little town where many tourists can spend the day walking through the cobblestones and getting lost in the turreted views, it also has a fairly St Petersburg vibe to many buildings so you can get a sense of Russia without having to jump through the visa hoops. But finally, and mainly, the reason people (or Finns) visit Tallinn is because the alcohol is so cheap! on every ferry you will see dozens of Finnish nationals boarding with trolley loads of slabs and bags full of spirits. Apparently it is cheaper to take a day off work for one or two people, catch a ferry 2 hours each way and load yourself up with booze than it is to just buy drinks in Finland. We did have our share of drinks in Finland, and whilst it was cheaper than Sweden and Norway, it wasn't THAT bad. No worse than Australia anyway. but it sounds like a good excuse to head across to Tallinn as any :)

But I digress... we were met with this little fellow when we walked through the town, and even though we opted to walk, he still deserves a picture for cuteness.

So on to the actual sites... As I said, Tallinn is such a beautiful city that you really just could walk around all day looking at things without going inside. Now for some of the things that we saw on some of our rambles...

The resident Orthodox chrich at the top of a big hill.

The Estonian Parliament

Another Church... Tallinn has many churches... we only went in the previous and one other , but you can climb almost all of the spires for excellent views.

Some of the Adorable little streets of the Old town:

Views from the top of Toompea Hill/Castle:

Nic at the top, and a random cat they have at a souvenir shop:

The most massive Seagull we have seen yet... We have no idea what they feed them here but they are bigger than Angel and Tosh!

the top of the menu board at the best pancake place in Tallinn "Kompressor" where you get a massive pancake bigger than large dinner plates, folded over with practically any sort of filling you can think of for 4 bucks!

The Old town walls

One of our next ideas was to get a central birds eye view of the city... so we climbed this church spire (the really tall one):

Nic is enjoying the climb... not even half way up and we were having fun lol... definitely should have gone to the 1000 steps more

High 5 for making it to the top finally!

The Views make it all worth it!

Troompea hill and castle site

Down was the easy part... though we did get pretty dizzy on the spiral staircases

The town hall... it has a medieval styles food place in it where you can buy elk soup and elk and boar pastry... nic really enjoyed the soup :)

on another day in Tallinn we rented some bikes andtook a ride up out out of the centre and see some more of the city in the Kalamaja and Pirita districts.

Our first stop was Patarei vanglamuuseum. An abandoned prison that was discontinued only in 2004 (ish) but looks like it has been abandoned for so much longer. Before that it served as a protection fortress for the city. It sits on a small beach and is really quite a nice spot to sit and enjoy a beer (which we naturally did)

When we got to the prison however, we discovered it didn't open until 12, so with an hour to kill we rode through some random streets, finding a pretty cool abandoned factory which nature is slowly reclaiming.

after some exporting of the local Kalamaja area (filled with rickety old Estonian houses and falling apart buildings as this area has been somewhat neglected by the city) we made it inside the prison.

It is an absolute bargain with entry only costing 2 euro and from there you can wander to your hearts content through all sorts of rubble and chaos.

this would definitely not meet OH&S in Aus... many floors are crumbling away or just have massive holes, there is glass everywhere, it is dark and spooky (pitch black in many rooms) and you can even walk up to the roof and guard tower... its sooo cool !!

We found the hospital wing where the surgery equipment and bottles still remain in many forms.

BOOO!

The Hanging room- complete with chair and hole in the floor

Enjoying some Estonian beer at the prison beach bar

Ill never be tall enough to trip balls :(

From the prison and Kalamaja to the west of Tallinns center, we headed cross town and explored the beach district of Pirita to the cities east. The two have completely different vibes. where there are very few people and crumbling buildings in the west, there are new parks and roads, green open spaces and heaps of people enjoying the beach in the east.

Contemplating existence as we stop for a break and snacks

The view back to the port and old town

Back to cycling.

from here we rode for another hour or so before heading back to the town. a total of about 7 hours riding and lots of walking and exploring... a very fun day :)

Tartu.

We did a day trip to Tart, 2.5 hours drive south of Tallinn, it is a University town and the second largest city in Estonia. We picked up a walking tour guide from the town hall tourist office and headed off on our trail... what we discovered is that Tartu'vians really love bridges, funny shaped road blocks, statues and monuments...

Tatru Town hall

The main street with Clogs

Monument #1

Nic reading the information on the statue... she played tour guide for the day and was the best guide ever! We learnt so much.. now of which we have promptly forgotten :)

A statue of Oscar Wilde and an Estonian Writer/Poet. The two never met or were any where near each other but this shows what it may have looked like if they ever had a conversation... because you know... art and stuff

Turtles!

Water feature/statue/monument to a professor

Wingged horses!

Actually the main reason we decided to day trip to Tartu (besides all of the awesome monuments) was to visit the KGB Prison and torture cells which is now a museum in the basement of an apartment building (formally HQ of the KGB in Tartu) . it goes through the history of KGB operations and influence on Estonia as well as showing the holding cells and torture instruments

The corridor with cells on either side. the cells were used to hold political prisoners accused of propagating against the soviet state and advocating for Estonian freedom. Here they underwent mental and physical deprivation and torture, with little food and sleep. guards would make them stand constantly, wet the concrete floors with cold water so they were never warm, lights were always blaring so prisoners were disoriented and that was all before the physical torture began. Any prisoners who rebelled were sent to a completely black cell which measured only 80cm square and made to stay there for 10 days, only being fed every 3.

a torture chair- political suspects were held here during questioning and physical torture.

the museum was gloomy and morbid but so very interesting to learn of the sadistic acts carried out by guards. I still cant imaging how people thought this was the right way to achieve their goals

After that moving experience, we continued our tour of monuments and bridges... through the quaint streets of Tartu.

Some local street art

Devils Bridge

One of the highlights of the walking tour was the old monastery in the park. It was bombed in WWII and was actually never finished. Now it just sits in the public park. The alter area was finished after WWII and now houses the university library.

Tour Guiding at the Sacrificial rocks:

Monument #1000

Without a doubt our best discover in Tartu were these amazing swinging park benches!! Every park needs these!! they were so much fun to sit and swing on

Monument #1001

Having a 'barrel' of laughs :D

We took a break for the afternoon in the botanic gardens and ate some great spinach and feta pastries they make here (something like spanakopita but a bit smaller and eaten cold)