Travelogue - Old Town in Tallinn, Estonia September 2012

As mentioned in my previous post, we woke up bright and chirpy at 7am. Couldn't believe it that we slept through 13 hours and a little bit more! Packed up and we were famished! Needed to have my morning coffee as usual.



 

Taken when we jumped out of bed and ran out into the street with our pyjamas on. Very excited to start a new day!

 

 

 

 

Same same but different. ;) 

Packed and all ready for a new day! Decided to rent bicycles to explore the town!

Our favourite mode of transport :)

He rented a bike that has no brakes! All he had to do was to step backwards on the pedal to stop the bicycle. Although that bike was cheaper, I really had no confidence riding it. So Tex rented one with brakes for me. I had to try so many bikes to find the one with the right height because they were all too tall for me! My foot couldn't even reach the ground. T.T

And we were good to go! :D

So blue.

We stayed really near the heart of the Old Town Square so it took us no more than a few minutes to circle round the area.

Why no tandem bicycle?!

Saw a glimpse of where we are heading!

Finally reached Alexander Nevsky Cathedral after about 20 minutes of cycling. Clumsy me dropped Tex's bike with his Macbook Pro in it. T.T Please don't be angry with me!

Kinda awe-inspiring I feel.

I always liked looking at churches even though I'm not a follower of the religions. The work and effort put into a building in those eras, just the thought of it is simply amazing to me.

The internal structure of the Church

Yes, no phototaking was allowed but since when did I follow the rules? I even took a camera up with me to a roller coaster ride before.

We then cycled to a nearby park and caught this by accident - a viewpoint looking over the modern Tallinn. We didn't have time to go shopping at all and Tex read somewhere that shopping in Estonia is really affordable! Oh well, I once heard from a tour guide that if you didn't get to do something or visit somewhere which you wanted in a foreign country, 留點遺憾，以後才會再回來. :)

Happy me.

Part of the Toompea Castle

Due to time constraint, we didn't visit Toompea Castle as we had to catch the ferry back to Helsinki at 12pm. Should have taken the 3pm ferry instead!

Cycled for another 10 minutes and we arrived at the Old Town Square.

Arriving at the Old Town Square

 

 

 

We were very hungry after all that cycling and Tex spotted a small little bakery! Each bread cost about €1 to €1.50 and we felt that was quite reasonable. They were super tasty in my opinion!




Tex comes back with breakfast!

HMMMMM.

 

 

We tried to visit this restaurant called The Little Piggy Inn or more well-known to the locals as Kuldse Notsu Korts but alas, they were not opened yet! We were too early for lunch! :( But that's okay, because we had the opportunity to explore further, we chanced upon this restaurant called Estlander and we had the most most most amazing lobster soup ever. Full and power-packed with loads of lobster meat and salmon!

 

 

 

Sorry for the super over-exposed photo. :(

Where I sat, I had a nice view of the Old Town Square.

At the alfresco dining of Estlander

 

 

I guess the reason why we love Estonia or rather, Tallinn, was because it exudes this fairytale charm in their buildings, especially those in the Old Town. People were smiley and friendly and most restaurant servers wore costumes and they really went all out to impress. It would be easy to pick up a small chat with them, if you could articulate your English slowly. Most of them speak Finnish, if I'm not wrong.

 

Oh my lovely Tex, everywhere we went, he never failed to offer me coffee when we patron a restaurant.

 

The milk jug so cute omg.

Meat (pork) salad, which I enjoyed tremendously, but not Tex

This is the lobster soup I was talking about!

And I don't even like cream soups. This is super savoury and light and best thing, it was served hot. Like really hot. The sweetness of all the seafood meats just melts into the soup. If only we had time for another bowl.. it cost us €6.60!
 

 



What I saw when I looked up to my left.

After finishing our meal, we had to rush back to the hostel to pick up our backpacks and walk to the port.

View from Linnahall

 

 

Love the fluffy clouds in the distance

 

 

 

 

 

Leaving Linnahall

Felt a little sad when leaving. I love Estonia so much! Such a quaint little place with rich history. Then again I'm pretty sure many countries in Europe has crazy rich history haha!

I can't wait to go back again!

Till the next! :D