I just finished up three full days in Tallinn, Estonia, along with a day-ish yesterday in Helsinki. These four days have gone by really quickly, and now, I’m looking at three days in St. Petersburg before a long flight home on Sunday. I have mixed emotions about the end of my trip – I’m happy to be going home, because I’m really, really tired and my feet are chronically sore right now. I’m also extraordinarily tired of figuring out what I’m going to eat and where. Every. Single. Day. Picking restaurants is super stressful for me, so I have just about lost all patience with finding a place to eat. This is why I eat the same things all the time at home! I’m also looking forward to sitting on my couch and doing absolutely nothing, guilt-free. When I’m traveling, I feel obligated to see as much as I can and make the most of my visit, especially when I only have a couple days in a city like I’ve had with the Baltic cities. When I’m at home, I have zero guilt about sitting on my couch doing nothing, and I very much want to do nothing for a few days.
I’m going to miss traveling, though. I really enjoy the excitement of seeing new things and getting to know a new place. There’s always something new or unexpected to experience, and this trip, I’ve tried to make sure I do something unique periodically (Lithuanian hot air ballooning, Russian ballet, etc.). I’ve always had a pretty good sense of direction, and I’ve gotten even better at quickly adapting to and learning a new city, so I’m rather proud of that and wouldn’t mind continuing to do it. Sadly, I cannot find anyone to pay me to take fun trips I plan for myself, so it looks like I will be heading home to find a real job instead.
This will likely be a bit shorter than usual, as I’m writing this on a “cruise ship” in the middle of the Baltic Sea, heading for St. Petersburg. Cruise ship is a bit of a generous description, as it has the look and layout of a cruise ship, but none of the major cruise lines would be caught dead with the Princess Anastasia in their fleet. I’m fairly certain this ship is older than I am. Anyway, I lose an hour going to SPB and am going to just touch on the highlights of Tallinn and Helsinki before going to bed. Hopefully, this will get posted when I’m in my SPB hotel but who knows how wifi will be. (Note: I did not actually lose an hour, SPB doesn’t observe Daylight Savings. I figured this out at 4 in the morning so I still lost an hour of sleep. Go, me.)
Tiny 
Very tiny 
Back of the boat
My first day in Tallinn was absolutely gorgeous, weather-wise: 60s and sunny. I slept in a bit since I arrived fairly late the night before from Riga and started with another free walking tour, which was very well-done. I also ran into my new Australian friends and their daughter on the tour, and it was fun to see them again. After that, on my guide’s recommendation, I headed to the Telliskivi neighborhood, which is the new hipster/up-and-coming area of Tallinn. It’s SUPER CUTE – little craft and jewelry shops, street art, food truck-type places, and a close proximity to the city’s central market (also full of crafts, antiques, food, etc.). I love that neighborhood and wish I could bring it home with me to Chicago. After that, I caught a random organ concert at one of the churches, which was mostly just an excuse to get off my feet for 30 minutes, before taking the bus out to the Seaplane Harbour Museum.
St. Nicholas’ Russian Orthodox Church 
Tallinn from Upper Town 
Museum of Occupations & Freedom 
Town Hall Square
Telliskivi Street Art 
Fun fact about me: I love a good maritime museum. I don’t know where this came from or why (though I do know it started with Sweden’s Vasa Museum), but I can spend hours in a good one, and this one was one of the best. It’s actually one of the top 5 museums I’ve ever been to. It shows Estonia’s maritime history, with old handmade boats hanging from the ceiling of a refurbished hangar. The hangar itself is a great design, and on top of all the old boats, there’s also the first Estonian submarine, which you can go inside. It’s similar to the U-505 sub at MSI in Chicago. The Seaplane Harbour Museum is really high-tech and interactive – one of my favorite features was the ability to choose from 6 different “movies” that project onto the side of the sub, showing life on the sub. Outside, you can tour an icebreaker ship, which was also very cool. I probably would have spent more than the nearly 2 hours I already devoted there, but they closed on me so I had to leave. This was a really great day – I managed to do all of the things I love to do while traveling all in one day: walking tour, shopping, museum.
Seaplane Harbor Museum 
Interior 
Handbuilt boat 
Movie on a sub
Monday was rainy and a bit low key, but Tuesday was a visit to Lahemaa National Park with a small group tour. The national park itself was amazing (a waterfall, hiking, bogs, the sea, and friendly dogs) and my guide was very good, but I unfortunately had a terrible group. I’ve been so lucky to have great groups on all my other small group tours, it was kind of a surprise to remember, oh, right, these can also be bad. The female half of the American couple was a birder, and she did not stop talking about the goddamn birds the whole trip (I detest birds – I’ve been shit on four times so they detest me, too). She was also late to every meet-up time, which is a pet peeve of mine – everyone on tours like this is almost always very respectful of the meet-up times when a guide gives you free time, and to be late in every single instance was beyond rude and extremely disrespectful. One of a group of three Irish friends wouldn’t try anything new, and the Asian couple never talked to anyone (probably a language thing there, though). Needless to say, it was a good reminder how lucky I was to have great groups on my previous tours. And it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the park much, so I’m going to stop complaining now. The park is gorgeous – Estonia has a lot of forests and green space and it was nice to get out of the city and enjoy it, regardless of the company.
“Biggest” waterfall in Estonia 
A bog 
Boulders are protected 
Manor House 
Wednesday, I took an extremely early ferry to Helsinki, as this is where my overnight ferry to St. Petersburg was departing from. I had hemmed and hawed about only spending the day in Helsinki rather than having an overnight, and after seeing the city, I kind of wish I’d spent a night here. Or a couple nights, and gone on a day trip or two. Anyway, the weather was beautiful today (and it really affects my impression of a place, no matter how much I try to look beyond it when it’s bad), and it has some great architecture. I had about 7 hours so I did a bus tour to get the lay of the land (and sadly fell asleep for part of it, because that’s what I do in transportation I’m not operating), and then I basically shopped. Because Helsinki has fantastic shopping, which is unfortunate for my bank account and credit cards. I found a wonderful Christmas shop so I have a boatload of Christmas stuff coming home with me. I have zero space left in my suitcase so hopefully SPB has terrible shopping… I should have a few hours Sunday morning before my afternoon flight, so I’m going to try and see a church I missed today and maybe take a canal cruise depending on the weather. I love Scandinavia and plan to make a return trip to Sweden and Norway down the road, so a few more days in Finland will definitely make that itinerary. I’ll let you know how I feel about Russia soon!
Trams! 
Helsinki Cathedral 
Uspenski Cathedral 
Temppeliaukio Church in the Rock 
Finnish Flag in Flowers
There’s an even more ridiculous amount of Malta and Baltics pics and Italy pics on Facebook, as well as a more reasonable amount on Instagram.
I would not have guessed that Estonia would have a delightful neighborhood that you would want to bring back with you. I guess I thought that years of Communist domination would wipe out any native culture. So my mind was expanded. There are sooo many places that I have not seen that I probably will never get to Estonia, but I do have a different view of it. Sounds like you will need to buy a trunk to ship home your souvenirs, especially the additions to your Christmas collection. Where will you house your collection? 😉
Don’t worry, that’s a really common misconception about the former occupied countries. The Baltic countries all had a long history of occupation by various super powers throughout history, and a lot of their culture was adapted from those occupations. The Soviets did their best to wipe the culture and language (one of the cornerstones of culture), but these are all stubborn groups of people and they held on fiercely. Of the three, Estonia has been quickest to rebound economically after the fall of the Soviet Union, but Latvia and Lithuania are close behind. What I heard most often from each country was regret at the lost time under the Soviets; i.e. where would they be if they hadn’t been occupied for nearly 50 years? They often compared themselves to Finland, which also gained it’s independence from Russia in 1918 along with the Baltic countries but did not suffer the Soviet occupation and is quite prosperous. But you can never really know what could have been.
Anyway, there’s a lot in the world I won’t see either – it’s a pretty big world! But we see what we can and enjoy it. Just like I enjoy Christmas ornaments. I’m going to need another tree soon…