Thursday Travels - Helsinki and Tallinn

Thursday Travels are back! Mainly because I have a lot of trips to write about so I figured I better get to it. Otherwise Thursday Travels would still be on hiatus. Until December. So first up - our little trip up north.

Lately I have read quite a lot about Tallinn - it's a European Capital of Culture 2011, it's up and coming, on various "places to go" lists, yada yada yada. So we went. We flew to Helsinki and the next morning took the ferry to Tallinn. The ferry ride from Helsinki to Tallinn is very easy and quick. The ferries depart from a central location in Helsinki (about a 15 minute walk from our centrally located hotel), and the ride is about 90 minutes. We took one of the faster catamarans, which I would recommend. It was air conditioned (handy since the weekend we went it was HOT), had a bar (popular, even at 10am), and comfy, so basically what you need for a boat ride. The ferry docks about a 10 minute walk away from Tallinn's old town, and we just blindly followed the other passengers, hoping they weren't going to the mall on the outskirts of town instead.

Tallinn's old town was pretty, charming, colorful yet OVERRUN with tourists. Unfortunately, I think Tallinn has already started to suffer from the "Rick Steves" effect: far too many tourists descending on one place all at once, and all clutching his guidebook. Similar to what happened in Cinque Terre after he started raving about it years ago. There were tourists everywhere, and therefore the old town lost any feeling of authenticity. Some may argue that few touristy cities are authentic, however, walking around Italian towns you still see Italian townspeople out doing their shopping, hanging their laundry, gossiping with neighbors, walking kids to school. In Tallinn I did not see one Estonian, not one person who seemed to actually be living their life in the old town.

We walked around the old town for a while (it's pretty small), visited the churches, saw the main square, saw the old walls and had lunch. I researched where to eat, and it seemed that one of the most popular restaurants, even at lunch, is a Medieval-themed restaurant that serves bear. We ended up at a pizza place (don't roll your eyes...). It was perfectly decent, although not air conditioned. We decided to forgo the Medieval fun, and the BEAR, on such a sweltering day for something a tad bit lighter, and BEAR-free.

The ferry schedules are sort of limited, there aren't ferries between Helsinki and Tallinn every hour, so we timed our city walk to coincide with us catching the earlier afternoon boat. In the end, we didn't need any more time in Tallinn. Granted we only saw the old town, not any of the newer city, or a park I had read about it, but the point of our trip was to see the old town. When we first discussed going to Finland and Estonia I was considering spending the night in Tallinn, but we didn't. And I am really glad we didn't. Dave's friend told us you don't need too much time there and I am happy we listened to him. Having about five hours was more than enough time to see most, if not all of the old town, eat and do the to-and-fro ferry walk.

After our lunch, and on the way to catch the ferry back to Helsinki, I made Dave walk by one certain street I had read about. According to my sources, the KGB used one building in the old town to interrogate perceived enemies of the state. The windows in the building's basement were bricked up to muffle sounds. The flat squares seen below are the former windows, now covered. They went along the entire length of the building. And on to the ferry we went. By the way - Tallinn is known as a cheap place to buy alcohol so a LOT of people ride over from Finland, stock up on beer, etc and take it back on the ferry. We wondered why people had those collapsible shopping carts, and on the ride back we figured it out - they were overladen with the good stuff. Ready to go home and par-tay!

I know this post is rather negative on Tallinn, and I don't mean it to be. I am glad we went, I am glad we saw Tallinn, and I actually really enjoyed walking around the old town. Part of what made the day a bit unenjoyable was the weather, as it was soooooo hot, and the heat was inescapable. But I was also shocked how crowded the town was. Tour groups all over the place, and camera toting, shorts, socks and sandal wearing people everywhere! Oh, and I forgot to say mesh shirt wearing too.

I know - tourists in Europe, in the summer - oh my! How dare I criticize. It was just...so full. In such a small area too. It felt more crowded than most other European cities, except for maybe Venice. Would I recommend Tallinn? Yes, but only, ONLY as a day trip.

On the next installment of Thursday Travels - Helsinki. The land of berries and car races.