- Tallinn has a population of just under 500,000, which is 33% of the Estonian population.
- All local Tallinnese (probably not a word but sounds good) enjoy the luxury of free public transport, Lizzie and I have utilised this during rush hour confusion, win!
- Tallinn is laid out with the Old Town being encircled by a big wall and then all the modern buildings spanning out from it. The Old Town is a UNESCO Heritage Site. It seems to sprawl out in all directions with the harbour on one side. Being typical tourists we have only really explored the Old Town which is filled with Australian and British travellers, along with a lot of people speaking indiscernible languages.
- It is cold in Tallinn. Apparently it isn't always like this but damn it's cold, and this is meant to be summer! I gave myself a tour of the Old Town and with a biting wind around every corner I had to buy some gloves and only just stopped at buying a hat, making do with my raincoat hood. Admittedly they are very cosy double wool, pretty patterned mittens which will no doubt come in handy either in the mountains in Italy (hopefully not) or once I head back to Scandinavia. Then it hailed on me while I took photos with the Chinese tourists.
- Food is cheap, the supermarkets are a wonderland to me and I want to buy and try everything. The beer is also cheap, the local brand is Saku. We've gathered it's kind of like Tui and I drank a litre of it last night.
- Tallinn is the capital of the Republic of Estonia, Estonia has only been independent since 1991. There is a great little alleyway with the countries history in the flagstones but a concise version follows for you Dad. Quite an interesting history, I'm not sure what the economy is like but would be interesting to see the changes since 1991. Russian Rule (1710 - 1918), Republic of Estonia (1918 - 1940), Soviet Occupation (1940 - 1941), German Occupation (1941 - 1944), Soviet Occupation (1944 - 1991), Republic of Estonia (1991 - now).
- They have good shopping in Tallinn, yay for Zara and H&M. Not so ideal when you're sensible and know you have another 2 months of travelling around, a heavy pack is not appealing. Will have to contain myself until Stockholm.
- There is a really good little guide map made by locals for the Old Town area. It contains the perfect combination of activities, places to eat, sights to see and shopping tips. We met one of the guys who helped make it when we had pizza the other night. He was from further south, a country boy and had been living in Tallinn for 6 years. Nice guy.
- There are a lot of churches and cathedrals around. I visited most of them but the best one was up on the hill, Alexander Nevsky's Cathedral and had lots of beautiful gold gilded sculptures inside. I also quite liked St Olaf's Church which was up on the hill. There are very few tall buildings in Tallinn as it was forbidden to build anything higher than Olaf's spire, the boss apparently.
- There is only one airport in Tallinn and ferries to both Helsinki and Stockholm which are very frequent.
- They give good prizes at orienteering events. Should you ever want to attend Tallinn o-week make sure you win so you get free shoes/socks/running tops. Just what you always wanted.
- I gathered the below photo is for a play, it looks questionable...
No comments:
Post a Comment