Our day in Tallinn was a lot of fun. I wasn't really sure what to expect from Estonia, but my handy Rick Steves guidebook had at least informed me that a trip around the Old Town area was cute and worthwhile. In fact, we based our tour of Tallinn off of Rick Steve's self-guided tour.
The port led us directly into a touristy souvenier market, which made Mia very happy. There's been a running joke this entire trip involving the Russian accent that Mia likes to do and her insistence that there are only goats in Russia (having been there at least one day, I can safely say that there is definitely more to Russia than goats). In any case, apparently goats or sheep or something are a big thing in Estonia because there were a lot of goat-related products at the market. Directly following the market, there was a giant piece of wood that you sit on and make a wish on something. I'm not sure what it was, just that I made a wish that I passed the Bar.
Now that we were done with our port-related activities, we made our way to the old part of Tallinn. The walk to the Fat Magaret, which is the gate that leads into Old Town is about a 10-15 minute walk away from the port. A lot of it was uphill. Actually, half of the walk was uphill. Back in Medieval days, Tallinn used to be two neighboring (and feuding) cities that were separated by a wall. The lower part, I believe, was Tallinn and the higher part was Toompa. There's an interesting mix in the city of Russian influence and European influence from its days as a big merchant city. The old town area is really cute. Very medieval-y.
We walked through Fat Margaret tower and up Pikk Street (which is the major street of the old town). We walked by what used to be the building where they would send prisoners before sending them to Siberia. "Creative interrogation" methods were used in that building.
Then, it started raining. You'd think that on a summer cruise, we'd be hot. I think a lot of people packed for it. But, no. It feels like we've gotten rain almost every day of this trip. In any case, it's hard to do a walking tour in the rain, so we ducked into a candy store, which actually apparently is one of the best of the city. They had really cute Marizpan crafts, including some shaped into fruits and vegetables. I guess it was even a popular candy spot during Soviet occupation. We got some chocolates there to excuse the fact that we had used the store to hide from the rain. It was very good. If you ever happen to be in Tallinn, go to Maiasmokk (I think that is the name). It's got good stuff. It's across from the Church of the Holy Ghost.
Fortunately for us, the rain broke just as we exited the candy store, just in time for us to check out the Church of the Holy Ghost. We didn't go inside, but spent a few moments marvelling at the giant and very old wooden clock on the wall.
From there, we went to the Town Square, which was also very cute. After a bathroom break, we started our trek up to Toompa. There are a lot of great view points up in Toompa. Almost everywhere you go, you'll find a pretty view of the city.
On the way up, we passed by the Russian Cathedral. According to Rick Steves, this church isn't too popular among local Estonians, but it employs that classic architecture style that you think of when you think of Russia.
We also saw and went inside the Dome Church, which is a pretty church in the middle of the city. It's pretty old too and you can see the walls of the church are lined with the crests of many wealthy families from back in the day.
We then visited two separate view points, Patkuli Viewpoint and Kohtuotsa Viewpoints, which both gave really nice views of the old town that also overlooked the sea. We could actually also see the ship from there. It was really cool. More importantly, we had, at some point also found WiFi to steal.
After spending some time at both viewpoints, we circled back down to the lower areas of Tallinn. We were a bit hungry by that time, so we decided to stop somewhere to both sample the local beer and to try some of the locacl cuisine. Thus, we found this beer house called Beer House. They had some good beer and apparently one local popular food is Estonian style garlic bread. They use rye bread. It's so good. We also had chicken gizzard, which was interesting.
After eating, we made our way back to the ship just in time for Jimmy and me to participate in the ship's scavenger hunt. This was an exhausting experience. We had to get people to sign things, had to find things, and eventually found out that Chris and Chabba were competing against us. After eventually deciding to join forces, we ended up getting a question wrong and losing anyway. Our failure at scavenger hunt was followed by failure at trivia. There are too many smart old people on the ship.
We had dinner and then Umma and I decided to go watch the performance for the night. Ten years ago, we saw this performer, Elvy Rose, on another NCL Cruise Ship and, well, she performed here too. I watched half of the performance. It was good, but I was tired and started falling asleep, something I feel would have been better done outside of the theater of a relatively interactive musical performance. Instead, I went and watched Chris play Craps for a while. He was actually doing pretty well and was up a lot of money...until I came around.
That was about it. The rest of the night was spent preparing for our day in Russia.
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