2022 World Tour – Tallinn Estonia
Hello from Tallin, my 39th stop on the trip, but I can’t claim it as a new country as I visited here in July 2006 on an IBM trip to visit Finnair in Helsinki. I took the high-speed ferry over to Tallinn for the afternoon, and then back to Helsinki.
Below is the standard summary, updated to no longer necessary items:
– Cool Ranch Doritos: No. I did find chips labelled ‘Ranch’ but not even close
– Thai ATM Card Works: Yes
– Thai Debit Card Works: Yes, but had one decline for no apparent reason
– Thai Internet Purchase Works: Yes
– USA Credit Card Works: Didn’t try
– Worldwide Telephone/Data/SMS eSIM Works: Yes
– Magic Jack Works: Didn’t try
– Drone Flights: Didn’t check
– Cost of Living: $$$$
– Currency: Euro ⬠1.00 = USD $1.00
– Language Issues: None
Your Short History Lesson:
Humans have been in the region since at least 9000 BC, then Christianity came through in the 13th century. Being a critical piece of geography, the area was ruled by the crusader state Teutonic Order (which I’ve never heard of), then Denmark, Sweden and Russia. Estonia declared independence in 1918 and quickly defended itself against a Russian invasion. During World War II it was invaded again by the Soviets then the Nazis and the Soviets again and it remained an occupied state for 40+ years. The “Singing Revolution” of 1988-1991 restored independence. Tallinn is the capital and largest city in this sparsely populated country of 1.3 million. It is a member of the EU, Euro Zone, NATO and Schengen. It had one of the first governments to push Internet and advanced technology citizen services, and ranks highly in quality of life, education and press freedom.
As you may recall, there was virtually no way to get from Gdansk to Tallinn by bus, train or ferry, so I had to book a two-segment plane flight with Lot, the Polish flag-carrier airline. I had to get up at 6:30am to get ready, check out and then take a 35 minute bus ride northwest to get to the airport. Luckily there was nobody in line for the agent and I zipped through security once I realized I had to duck under two roped-off areas to get in – WTF? The plane was a turboprop Dash-8, 37 minutes in the air to Warsaw then then an Embraer 190 jet about 1.5 hours to Tallin. Smooth and easy, should be an example of how well an airline can run.
Leaving the Tallin airport I had to pay for a tram ticket with a card only, no way to pay with Euro coins. Two women were standing there with coins and they asked if I could buy 3 tickets and they would give me â¬1.50 each so we made the deal. The tram slowly made its way through town, I got off and rolled the last little way to the hotel. There’s a grocery store directly across the street and restaurants everywhere you look on my street. It’s just one block over to get into the Old Town, the highlight of the city. The hotel room is perfect with aircon, minifridge, good shower, good bed, dark curtains, good Wifi and a TV with English news channels. I decided this is a good place to relax for some extra days so I went downstairs and directly booked another 4 days for â¬300. Later I looked on Expedia and they had the same room for â¬240, so I talked with the manager and she immediately offered to refund the â¬60 difference, a very nice gesture that she really didn’t have to do.
After resting, I walked through one of the ancient stone gates into the Old Town about 7pm and just strolled around, taking in the sights that I saw 16 years before. I wonder if that same postcard girl is still working? The narrow roads are former cow-paths I’m sure, opening up into large squares lined with old buildings and filled with restaurants and looking beautiful all lit up at night.
I’ll condense the next 6 days in town – bought a mouse at a computer shop to help with video editing, got a load of laundry done for â¬11 in the basement of a bus station, took both loops on the Big Red sightseeing bus and scouted out locations to explore later like the marina, the Seaplane museum and the TV tower. Went slowly through the Museum of Occupations and Freedom that showed the waves of invasions and crimes of humanity against the citizens, the same story everywhere I turn in eastern Europe. I had dinner in several great restaurants around the city, bought consumables like overpriced soap and deodorant, tried to get a shoe repair but the cobbler said it will take two days as he was sitting reading a book at his desk, got into a wine industry tasting event put on by the Italian Ambassador with about 10 wineries looking for local distributors, went to the first concert at a new music venue in the city, walked for miles along the beach to the cruise ship and ferry terminal, went through a farmer’s market set up in 3 former Zeppelin hangars and saw an interesting collection of high heels. Whew!
Tesla executed its 3:1 stock split, yay! The price dropped down a little bit over the next two weeks, boo! Future me says it’s nicely back over the split price.
It Tallinn worth the visit? Yes, but it’s hard to get to unless you’re already in Helsinki, but if you can, try to fit it in.
Next Stop: An Unexpected Journey to Turku, Finland
