Tallinn, Estonia

A beautiful day at sea

Our arrival in Tallinn, Estonia, was sunny and early.  Estonia is a small Baltic nation which has experienced only a few years of freedom in the last 700 years. It has been conquered by Sweden, Russia, and Germany at various times. It is an important sea port so one can easily determine its importance militarily. 

The city looks like a version of Disney World when seen from the deck of the ship. The quaint towers and hilly landscape provide a scene of the city not unlike a picture book of a European fairy tale. 

Tallinn from the ship

We opted to take a “Hop-on-Hop-off” tour of the city.  It is a popular way of getting a quick overview and one can easily jump off the bus if one spots something worthy of further investigation. We “hopped” off at the first stop which is fairly near the top of the hilltop where the fortress is located. This part of the city was for the nobility. The merchants and townspeople lived in the lower city.  The lower part of the city belonged to the Hanseatic league whereas the fortress area did not.

The Orthodox Cathedral

At this point Craig discovered he had left his cell phone on the bus, not only his phone but the case for it contained his driver’s license and credit card. So it was necessary to locate it quickly. We took a taxi back to the dock where another driver for the same bus company assisted him and the phone was safely returned. 

Estonian Parliament

We were able to continue our overview tour and not finding anything that was of particular interest to us so that we needed to "hop off" we remained on the bus and returned to the ship. We sailed that evening for St. Petersburg.

A picturesque neighborhood

Some of the rooftops of Tallinn