Day 6 -Tallin, Estonia

Day 6: Friday 10 July

Had a lazy morning today, before we arrived in Tallinn in Estonia at about midday.

Shuttle buses were provided to take us from the port to the edge of the lower old town. We were given a map and set off to explore. We didn't really know which direction to follow, so we walked through a little park area and "followed our noses". We arrived at a church with a tall spire. We went into the church and discovered it was possible to climb the tower to a viewing platform. We thought this would give us a panoramic view of the city so decided to climb. There were 230 steps up the narrow, twisting and steep spire. It was very hard work and Fiona kept having to step to get some breath back! We finally got to the platform and discovered that it was an open area with a flimsy wire fence around it, i.e., there was no parapet to speak of.
There were quite a few people out there already. I stepped out and immediately realised I wasn't going to be able to go any further! Fiona was able to spot enough landmarks to realise that we were in the lower old town, rather than the upper old town where we really wanted to be.
I wimped out totally and we went back down the 230 steps, passing a number of people climbing up, including one man carrying a toddler!
When we had got down Fions's knees were shaking and they didn't recover for several hours!!!
We discovered that this 14th century Gothic church was once considered to be the tallest building in the world! In Medieval days its spire was 159 metres high, but now it is only 124. However it still commands amazing views over the city.

We headed up towards the upper old town, stopping on the way, in an interesting courtyard café cum pottery and gift shop to have a drink. There were many interesting and impressive buildings, and several times we looked down a side street only to see an interesting tower sticking up above the roofs.
We found the St Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, which is a very Russian looking onion-domed affair established in 1900 and now the main place for Estonia's Russian Orthodox faithful. Unfortunately we couldn't get inside to look around, so walked back through the ancient town hall towards the main city square in the lower old town. We had discovered that the map we had downloaded from Google was upside down when compared to the printed one we had been given! Very confusing!

We went to the town square - Raekoja platz, with its old Town Hall, considered the best preserved Gothic Town Hall in northern Europe. We passed various displays of mediaeval ways of life - an old forge, leather work, an iron smelting system, etc. There were lots of people in mediaeval costumes and this theme carried on in the town square, which was filled with market stalls.

We saw several groups of people wearing matching track suits, and it turned out that the world gymnastics competition is taking place in Helsinki, which is only about 50 miles due north of Tallinn straight across the Gulf of Finland (St Petersburg is right at the head of the Gulf of Finland, east of Tallinn).

We walked down through the old town, passed through the city wall, passed several flower stalls and back towards where we were getting the bus. We got a totally disoriented on the way, as it was not the way we had entered the city earlier, but we soon got back on track and found the bus waiting to take us back to the ship.

Tallinn is a nice city. The old town has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We enjoyed seeing it, but Fiona felt its quaintness was a bit contrived!!

We left Tallinn at 16:30 and set sail for St Petersburg - to the east.