We awoke at 5:15. By 6, we were packed and headed downstairs.
The breakfast buffet was being set up, but wasn't open until 6:30. We dug in anyway, taking full advantage of that smoked salmon we've fallen in love with.
At 6:20 we grabbed a taxi to the harbor. On the way we stopped at the train station to withdraw money from the machine that we know works.
At 6:40 we were dropped off at the ferry terminal. We walked to the ticket counter and picked up and paid for our tickets, then headed to gate C.
After we scanned our tickets through the gate, we were stopped by a woman doing a survey on the effects of tourism on Finland's economy. It gave us a smug sense of satisfaction to answer "0," "no" and "none" when asked about whether we were part of a package trip here, how much we had spent and planned before getting here, etc.
The ship we boarded was no ferry. It was a cruise ship, in every sense of the word. 10 decks, two restaurants, a shopping center, a grocery, a slots casino, hotel room, a pub, and a sun deck. We sat midship in the less formal of the two restaurants.
At 7:23, our 7:30 ferry left. I kept wondering what it must be like to arrive at 7:24...
In the bay, there is very little ice. But no more than a half kilometer off our moorings, stray ice floes wandered past us. A short while later, we were in the channel of pure ice chunks surrounded by solid ice chunks. The ship was constantly vibrating as the massive floes slammed into the hull, and an endless scraping sound echoed through the cabins.
We took turns exploring the ship and watching the bags. Early on we moved seats into the pub, so to be near the drinks, the windows, and the sun deck at once. All the while we were listening to music that could have been considered good karaoke music in China, but not many other places.
Exactly an hour into our trek, we passed a small intersection of broken ice. Our lane, trekking between Finland and Estonia, had crossed over an east-west track; most likely the Russia-Sweden (St. Petersburg-Stockholm) route.
Shortly after that I turned €1.40 into €5.80 on the slot machines.
Hit the shore at 9:45, got off. I won €1 off my dad because he thought there'd be customs agents at the border. But they are both European Union countries, so no border control.
We found a car rental place and reserved a Toyota for 3:00 today. Then we searched for change to pay the €3 to store our bags in locker 121 in the docks station for the day.
At 10 we left the station for the old city of Tallinn, only a few minutes walk away. The walled city is a picture perfect example of a relatively unaltered medieval city that, in modern times, expanded beyond the walls into an urban sprawl. The city of Tallinn holds about 400,000 of Estonia's meager 1,300,000 citizens, and the main city holds nothing of great interest to a tourist, so we felt no need to explore anything other than the old city.
The first historical item we passed is called Fat Margaret's Tower. While I don't know if the Margaret for whom the tower is named was herself morbidly obese, her namesake certainly is. It is only several meters tall, but is 25 meters in diameter on the outside and has 6.5 meter thick walls. The interior was used as a defensive gun battery, but was converted to a prison at some point as well. It would be hard to tunnel out of it..
Next we found Number 29 on Lai street, a home that once housed Peter the Great. It was a pristine example of architecture from fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
I bought a souvenir for myself, an Estonia shot glass.
At 11:45 we stopped for pastries (which was essentially our lunch) at Kalev, a successor store to Tallinn's most famous confectioner Georg Stude (Established 1864). The ceiling patterns were amazing, but the pastries to die for. My dad had a marzipan cake, and I had a meringue thing with vanilla.
I left my father in the pastry shop (which is always a bad idea), and went to the main square around the corner. The town hall, a spired church-style building, took up part of the cobblestone area, but it was mostly open and quite beautiful. A little ways down the square, though, I got distracted by a cigar shop down Dunkri street.
I went inside, where I met Carolina (Carr-oh-LEE-nah), a very cute Estonian girl from Pärnu, a beach town in the south of the country, who was in charge of the shop. She took me to the basement and the walk in humidor, where I was astounded by 60 different Cuban cigars. I picked out a few cheap ones and went upstairs to pay, when my dad found me. We chatted with Carolina for a while, and left for fifteen minutes while she worked out the receipts (she just started working there recently), and bought our cigars and left.
Next on the list was the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, a beautiful Russian Orthodox cathedral in what was formerly the lord's section of town.
Behind that cathedral is the Cathedral of Saint Mary the Virgin, which is the oldest church in Tallinn and mainland Estonia. Inside was incredibly elaborate, with Christianity symbols pasted all over the walls. Coats of Arms hung everywhere, too, all of which was dwarfed by the massive organ on the second floor against the back wall. Someone was playing music the entire time we were inside.
The final stop before starting the walk out of Tallinn's old city was Tall Hermann's Tower. If Fat Margaret's width matched the size of her tower, Hermann was a twig. The tower is adjacent to the Danish King's Palace, a pink royal home left over from the brief stint that the Danes ruled the area several hundred years ago.
On the way out, we stopped at the Tallinn city museum, but there was not much to be learnt - except for a fascinating history of conquering and reconquering by the Danes, Swedes, Russians, and Germans (and I think the Poles too). In the past 800 years, Estonia has been a free and independent state for about 40, and all since the 1900s.
We had a 3:00 car pickup, but it wasn't until 4:12 that we were on the road to Riga, Latvia.
At 5:45 we arrived at Pärnu, and drove through the streets looking for food. We found the beach instead, which was frozen solid, of course. We walked out to sea about a half kilometer.
We got back in the car after the beach, and I took my turn driving.
We stopped for dinner at 6:45 at La Boca Restoran, which we found by chance in Pärnu. It was so cheap! Appetizers were a couple of Euros, the main courses were €10 or so. My dad had three meals, a herring dish, a soup, and a chicken dish. I had Lõhe Carpaccio Röstsaiaga (salmon carpaccio on toast) and Pikantne Lambapada - (oven baked spicy mutton [tomato pepperoni with spicy cous vous and cheese cover]). The total bill was €30. But the service was slow.
The main course came just after 8. We paid and left by 8:20, now severely behind schedule. I started us off driving the next leg.
Around 9 I was falling asleep at the wheel, so I dropped at a rest stop to get a red bull and diet coke.
At 9:25 we crossed into Latvia. No border control? No passport? An EU "Latvija" sign? But they use the lat.. Not the Euro.. What was going on? It wasn't until a few hours later I learned that Latvia had been in the EU for 7 or 8 years, but their inflation has been above 11% for those years (which is absurd!) and they cannot yet gain Euro status.
One thing that did change was the speed limit. It went from 100km/hr in Estonia to 70km/hr in Latvia. I don't know this for sure, but I've heard there are former soviet countries that lower the speed limit because their cop cars aren't fast enough to chase genuinely fast cars. Perhaps Latvia is one of them? Maybe we should outrun some cops..
Ten minutes after the border we performed a Chinese Fire Drill and switched drivers. I was falling asleep. While I was out of the car, I made sure to relieve myself into the Latvian wilderness.
At 10:38 we entered Riga. The old town looks interesting, and the modern part of the city itself seems more lively and exciting. While we were both too exhausted to explore tonight, we will tomorrow.
By 11:33 we had checked into room 6403 at a local Radisson we passed as we drove in. I spent a little while writing this post and then passed out around 2.
No comments:
Post a Comment