Since we left Riga yesterday morning, the weather has made a turn for the worse. Today it has been quite cold, 9 degrees, and raining most of the time. The forecast for the next couple of days is more of the same.
The day started well when went we went for a walk through the Old Town. The streets are all quite narrow with many steps climbing uphill to the Russian Orthodox Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and the Lutheran Church. An immediate impression you get of Tallinn is one of colour. Many of the buildings are painted in soft colours like the post office in green and the Parliament in pink.
The streets are a delightful mix of colours and building styles
The Alexander Nevsky Russian Orthodox Church
The Lutheran Evangelical Church.
The castle walls with two of the twenty-six towers and just below you can see the archery targets where tourists were paying 10 Euros to take aim.
Below the walls was this modern statue (2008) of a nude couple.
A short distance on we came to a great viewing point over the city from where you could see the port with Baltic ferries and cruise liners docked. In fact, the city was crowded with passengers from the cruise liners being shown around by guides carrying signs with the ship's name.
Two views, the first showing the port in the distance and the second showing four castle wall towers.
We walked on down towards the car park to get some things out of our car. There we met Eric who was talking to the Tallinn police because his car had been broken into! The nearside front window had been smashed. From an initial search of the car, it appeared that nothing of value had been taken. I got my duct tape out and covered up the window so the car was driveable. A few phone calls later, we located a Land Rover dealer near to the airport. I drove my car to the dealer with Eric following. Unfortunately, they did not have the glass for his car but they very kindly taped a plastic covering over the window so that Eric could see through it, as well as giving some protection from the weather. The repair will have to wait till we get to Helsinki. We just have to hope they have a window in stock.
We drove back to an underground car park outside the Old Town, as we didn't want to leave the cars in the open car park for another night. Hopefully, the cars will not be subject to more vandals. We will know if we are right tomorrow morning!
While we were at the Land Rover dealer, Wendy visited the Holy Spirit Church, the oldest church in Tallinn, which had a beautiful interior with many carvings and paintings.
On her way back to the hotel, Wendy took this photo of the Town Hall and then she noticed, in a small shop window, this collection of wine corks. This photo is especially for our American daughter-in-law who has a collection of corks!!
Tomorrow we catch the 11am ferry to cross the Gulf of Finland to Helsinki and our first visit to Finland, the ninth country of the tour.
1 comment:
Thank you for the cork picture! It's so funny I took a picture for you, of course also having to do with wine, on the same day! I must say, white wine with ice in it might be the new norm for me. It really did make a difference.
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