TALLINN - is on the World Heritage list and one of the best preserved medieval towns in Europe. It is situated on the Gulf of Finland, the view over the water takes in all of the taller buildings which are hard to see once in the town.
We stayed in the Tallinn City Camping and each day when we came in by bus we could see the port. It was always full of cruise ships.
You enter the Old Town through the Viru gate which is one of two remaining towers that were once part of the fourteenth-century gate system. This picture was before the cruise tourists got to town.
Even McDonalds has street seating.
All over the Baltic countries in the town shops, the souvenir shops and the markets they sell amber. How much amber is there on this planet???
The town hall has the most unusual water spouts.
They were offering Elk soup here and in another crispy pigs ears.
I took this photo in the bus station. All the poles had been decorated with knitted scarves joined together and wrapped round the colums. It crtainly helped brighten up the place.
This is Tallin City Camping. There was some grass which was for the tent campers. These photos were taken about 10pm and 12 midnight. Midsummers night here was daylight until about 12. then twilight for 3 hrs before it was blue sky and sunshine again. They call it white nights as the sky is never black. At celebrations for days leading up to Midsummer there were fireworks,but the smoke was more noticable than the colourful light display as it was still daylight.
We had a lovely time talking to Henk and Hanneke from the Netherlands. It is so nice to speak english again rather than pigeon. They gave us a few tips on where they had been and info on campsites. We hope to catch up with them them when we get back to the Netherlands before taking the ferry to the UK.
On midsummer at the Festival of St John we joined in the festivities at the Estonian Outdoor museum. At the entrance we gathered with people in their national costume then walked in following a horse and cart with people carrying the torch to light the bonfire.
Once the fires were lit the celebrations began. There was dancing in the barn. Drinking at the beer tents. A try at folk dancing. Not a good idea after drinking.
We looked around the old buildings. This fence was interesting.
The fires were burning well having been built with huge logs.
Now it is time to say goodbye to Tallinn and start making our way back south.
We started off in the direction of Narva. On the way we decided to take a road along the coast. After many interesting kilometres we ended up in a small village of 6 houses right alongside the water under pine trees. The houses seem to date back to pre war. Except for a modern house where we ended up asking if they minded if we got off the track onto their land. After spending the night here we decided to follow the track leading out of the village as it was too far to go back. The GPS showed us the way along a very overgrown track through the forest where I am absolutely positive no Australian has ever been, In fact I think hardly anyone has been since the end of the soviet time. We saw an old bunker with a date of 1957 all overgrown beside the track. Were we glad to see a decent forest track at the end.
Once out of the forests we pass through farms and there are still a few of the buildings used as community farms from the soviet time.
We are almost at Narva. The signs also show St Petersburg as Narva is on the border of Estonia and Russia. If we had a russian visa we could drive there. Thank goodness we didn't after seeing the drivers in St Petersburg when we were there.
The river is the border between the two countries. We went to have a look at the border, the closest we could get without going over was looking between the old forts which are on either side of the river. The bridge can be seen as the white bit.
During the cold war a lot of Russian people were sent to Narva to work in the Soviet factories. We were told that about 80% of the people living here are Russian. All the signs are in both languages. There are kilometres of block apartments.
The weather is still unusually warm even though it is summer, it was 30c yesterday we joined the multitude at the beach. The road runs along the river and we could see guard towers on both sides.
The tower in the background is on the mouth of the river it is the Estonian one with radar, we were told the big thing they are watching for is cigarettes smuggled over from Russia.
The beach here is sand and about 9 kilometres long then goes back to stones. They have the little changing huts on the beach that we saw on the baltic beaches.
Kevin swam but I just paddled.
Our next town was Toila, a very pretty go ahead place. A lot of people were at the beach but there is no sand only stones and huge driftwood. We are staying in a lovely camping park and will head off tomorrow for Tartu.
We have been seeing white puffs floating everywhere we have been especially in Estonia. They come from this tree. It often looks like snow lying underneath.
These signs show bumps ahead. I cant count the times we have seen them with XXL written between the bumps.
The road warning signs for animls have now tured in to Moose insted of deer
After Tartu we will continue into Latvia. Goodbye euro hello 'lats'
The weather is still nice about 26c today.
