Tallinn

I arrived in Tallinn, Estonia late Monday night and met Sarah at our hotel.  We spent a few hours catching up before heading to bed.  Tuesday we spent all day exploring Tallinn.  It has a great "old town" section which is a well preserved medieval town on the UNESCO World Heritage list.  

View of Old Town Tallinn Part of the fortification of the city

I was really interested in seeing both Eastern Orthodox churches and Russian influence architecture.  First up we saw St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral which is a orthodox church.  The exterior architecture was beautiful, the inside was smaller then expected and very ornate but photos were not allowed.  We also saw the regional headquarters of the KGB in Tallinn - the basement windows are still bricked in.  That was the location of interrogations and torture before Estonians were sent to the work camps or killed. Estonia is an interesting mix of Russian and Scandinavian influences in both culture and architecture. 

St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

KGB Building

We were able to see a few more churches including the Dome Church (which had no dome) and St. Olav's (which is a Norwegian saint).  We had lunch in the town square which is very pretty.  Then we had a great "medieval" dinner at Old Hansa in the old town.  Sarah had bear sausage with a honey beer and I had beer glazed pork with a cinnamon beer.  Both meals were excellent and prepared with ancient recipes and the beer was outstanding!  

Dinner at Old Hansa- picture taken by the couple next to us who live in the same city as Sarah!

The next day we walked to Kadriorg Park which was a beautiful park and green space in the city.  We saw the presidential palace and toured Peter the Great's summer palace which is now an art museum.  Then we toured the brand new KUMU modern art museum which is also located in the park.  The modern art museum was pretty neat but only about 2/3 was decent art the remaining 1/3 was horrible modern art (like a sock)!  We had a late lunch at a hole in the wall dumpling place we read about in our guide book where they weigh your food- it was excellent.  We finished the afternoon with a little shopping then had a late dinner at a cute Sicilian place.  We then searched out the Estonian speciality drink - Vana Tallinn.  It comes in both a regular and a cream variety- we tried the cream and found it delicious!  

Peter the Great's summer palace and gardens

Another note on Tallinn - it is a 2.5 hour ferry ride from Helsinki and the Finnish come for the cheap alcohol which is a sight to be seen.  There is literally alcohol stores everywhere and they all take Euros (Finnish currency).  The Finns all have these great carts and load them up with booze to take back on the boat.  I am not sure what the legal importation amount is but either it is really high or the Finns like to break the rules!