Estonian walks and resulting activities....

Walking through Tallinn's old town is like going back to the Middle Ages, the stone streets, buildings, short towers (which were probably more than sufficient for a lookout back then) and city wall that you could walk along. The latter and seeing a crow fly from Hermann's Tower gave me Game of Thrones flashbacks.

Unfortunately I was there on a holiday so all the museums I wanted to visit, as well as the palace were closed. It gave me more time to wander, but even then I couldn't quite get enough of the medieval atmosphere and never left old town to see the more modern parts of the city.

Tallinn is a very affordable city to visit, I took advantage of this and ate fancier meals (soups, starters and the works!), bought street snacks (roasted seasoned almonds that were incredibly addictive, that cone of nuts ran out days ago and I'm still thinking about them). I went to Pôgu, one of those restaurants where there's just a door on the side of an arched passageway and you have to go down some pretty uneven stairs before you find a full sized hoppin' joint in the basement. Russian food is pretty abundant in Tallinn as well, which is more than ok to me. One of my favourite things about being in Russia last year was the food (kinda weird right? But it's true). Another discovery I made was Fizz cider, I highly recommend the blueberry.

While souvenir shopping I wandered into a store (one of many!!) featuring handmade wool/felt goods, the hats were quite beautiful (and yes, somewhat 20's-esque) so I tried some on (still sad I had no practical way of transporting them home). The shopkeeper puts this one hat on me, tells me it's a traditional style in Estonia, a looooong knit toque that you put on like a normal hat then wrap the tail around you like a scarf. I laughed and laughed but you know what? It was actually very practical and made me wonder why us Canadians have never thought of such a thing! So I bought it lol. Watch for me to rock the cold weather Estonian-style next winter!

It'd been my original plan to buy a Tallinn card which included admission into all the museums and transit, but that idea went out the window when I found out everything was closed (thanks to the girl at Go Hotel's front desk). As a result I had to buy separate transit fare to get the tram to the bus terminal the day I left for Riga, pretty easy and I was across the street from Balti Jaam, the train station, so transit service was frequent. Riding the tram to the bus station was the only glimpse I had of regular life in Tallinn, but I'd argue there's probably no better sampling of everyday life you can get than by taking public transit.

So many felt crafts in Tallinn...love these dolls...

Next up....Riga, Latvia!