Public transport is free to Tallinn’s residents…a waste of good taxes? Well, actually no, as more people have registered the government actually collect more taxes, more people shop locally and there are less cars on the road. Less cars is better for the environment and for people’s health so actually it’s paid for itself in terms of more taxpayers and savings.
Tallinn is a lovely city and its old town is majestic. I strolled around its city walls past young couples snogging – what is it about young couples and city walls? It must put them in the mood for romance.
Speaking of romance, I’d had a breakup so I was still reeling from that. Luckily, a met an Aussie guy in my room who’d been through a similar situation so we went out for a meal and then some drinking.
The service was terrible but I still said ‘thank you’ after everything and he told me that British people are overly polite. I still think about what he said now as I still say ‘thank you’ a lot. We decided we would come home when it got dark and it just didn’t get dark.
The next day I took the tram to Kadriorg park, it turned out that I didn’t really need to, the park was not too far from the old town so I could have easily walked. I visited the metal-and-glass pointy building that is the Art Museum of Estonia. I love modern art so it was very much my bag and I had a coffee in its cafe whilst feeling very cultured.
After that pause, I decided to keep walking and ended up going on a lovely stroll along the coastal road which meanders around Tallinn Bay called the Pirita Tee.
There is a classically concrete Soviet war monument on the stroll. Clearly, the brutalist architecture spoke to the two girls that were on it as they were doing a little photoshoot with the wind blowing in their hair. I passed the Olympic yachting centre which was used in the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
I ended my wander at the ruined Convent of St Birgitta, destroyed by Ivan the Terrible in the Livonian War. The nuns were actually only allowed to reclaim their convent several decades later when they rebuilt next to the ruins.
I went on a day trip to Paldiski and then I got the bus to the lovely university city of Tartu, which is halfway down the country and often ignored by foreign visitors heading to the capital.