Start point. Hestia Hotel Susi, Tallin, Estonia.
Finish point. Hestia Hotel Susi, Tallin, Estonia.
Distance. 5 Miles on the bike. But who’s counting ??
Total. 3050 Miles.
I hope you all like looking at pictures, as there’s going to be a few.
One reason for bringing the bike was to make this type of day out easier to do, on leaving the hotel it was a steady 15 minute ride into the Old Town of Tallin, once there I locked the bike up and spent the next 6 hours wandering the streets along with a million other tourists, the harbour had quite a few cruise ships in and most of the hotels I have been past have loads of coaches parked up.
There were two highlights of the day, one is the Tallinna Linnamuuseum, for a paltry 14€ you get a great workout going up and down thousands of steps for a couple of hours, in my case trying not to have a heart attack, but the exhibits were brilliant, with plenty of descriptions in English giving the whole history of Tallin and the various occupation forces that have invaded over the years. In the price you get to go down into the deepest recesses of the hill the old town is built on and along the Bastion passages, a true delight but not for the claustrophobic.
HIghlight number two was found when I was heading away from the tourists and tour groups that had filled up all the restaurants, on a side road I came across The Georgia Tavern, not that I read the sign on the way in, it was the aromatic smell of something spicy cooking that drew me in. Once inside and seated all on my lonesome it was time to browse the menu, again there were English translations and that made the choice easy, beef soup starter and lamb shashlik for main all washed down with Georgian amber ale. Simply excellent food and good sized portions, even by my standards. Its one eatery I can heartily recommend, that’s going into “Del’s Best Kebab’s of the World Guidebook.”
After that it was back to wandering again.
Estonia plays Northern Ireland tonight, here, only a non football loving muppet would book the hotel for this very weekend and not know that, according to one of the lads enjoying the local hostelry there are about 1700 fans here, from what I saw they were having a great time, there was a very party like atmosphere with some of them playing with giant blow up footballs in the streets outside the bars, and the police were being very discreet with only a handful on view and they were mainly on foot, fingers crossed it goes well for them tonight.
I must admit that the riot vans were pretty discreet compared to the ones in the UK.
Do you think they would notice one go missing, it would make a great campervan.
Is it worth visiting Tallin ? I would definitely rate it on the to do list, it’s geared up to cater for all types of visitor, from the obligatory hen and stag do’s, to the family here for a weekend, to the many cruise ships that call in here on their Baltic sailings and even to a lone traveller, no matter how he gets here there is something for everyone. I’ll expect my cheque from the Estonian Tourist Board any day now.
Thanks for reading, enjoy.
Delscampertour 