Spitting Yarn

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I remember now that I had promised you all a post on my visit to Tallinn. You got my account of the crafty or (kasitoo) side of Estonia, and on my Vappu exploits in Helsinki, but not on the beautiful city of Tallinn itself.

We stayed in a great place called Merchant’s House Hotel. The building is located in the middle of the Old Town and is housed in beautiful old 14th and 16th century townhouses.

As the hotel was busy (it was May Day weekend), there were no double rooms left at the time of booking, so we had to take a junior suite for the same price – how inconvenient(!)

The room (by “suite” they meant very large double room) was beautiful. The two highlights for me were the wonderful 14th century painted wood ceiling and a French roll top bath! Due to a small mix up, our room had not been serviced before our arrival, and so when we eventually got in, there was a bottle of red wine, flowers and fruit by way of apology, which made it all the nicer.

Hotels in Tallinn are not cheap and room rates are competitive with those of most major European cities. However, coming from London, I found pretty much everything else (taxis, restaurants, goods, etc) very inexpensive. As we were only staying for one night, we splashed out on a nice hotel, but there are definitely more reasonably priced rooms to be had. In short, you could easily take a trip to Tallinn and not break the bank.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we were lucky enough to be greeted by Liia, my spoilee from the last round of Secret Pal and host of the blog Kasitoo. I can’t tell you what a difference it made to be shown around by Liia. We were only there for such a short time, and I have no doubt that without Liia, we would have wandered rather aimlessly and not seen half the things we ended up seeing.

Liia took us on a three hour walking tour despite being pregnant (she is a good walker!) and with exams looming. She also told us much about the history of Estonia which has been a pawn in the geopolitical wars of its neighbours. I was very moved to hear her description of two million Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians holding hands in an unbroken chain across the three countries to protest against Soviet policies in 1989, a peaceful act which Liia took part in as a young girl.

We exchanged facts about our home nations and tried to reconcile the differences between living in a city with a population of about 500,000 (Tallinn) and a city with 7.5 million people (London)!

In view of Estonia’s history, it was interesting to see the Parliament building and to see the Estonian flag flying. I was very impressed to find that the Parliament building is pink! London’s Houses of Parliament would really bring in the tourists if we painted it pink – although, it may end up looking like something from Disney Land, given that it’s pretty roccoco in style already!

Estonia’s economy is on the up, which is good news for its inhabitants. In particular, the country has built up an impressive IT sector, which boasts the likes of Skype. However, Liia told us that she and others are concerned that the real estate development is threatening some of their historical buildings. The picture below shows how the new town is encroaching on the Old Town.

I found the wildly diverse architectural styles of Tallinn to be one of the most interesting things about the city. As you fly in on the plane, regimented concrete block Soviet housing marks your approach to the city. Driving from the airport to the Old Town, you pass functional Estonian architecture which seemed to take the functional Soviet approach and applied it with more care and thought to aesthetics. In the centre of the new town, ubiquitous skyscrapers and tall buildings dominate, heralding Estonia’s improved economic fortunes. The Old Town is the most aesthetically pleasing part, with medieval town houses rubbing up against baroque and classical Russian architecture.

We got a good appreciation of this architectural anarchy from one of the viewing platforms at the top of the Old Town. It was particularly good to see such excellently preserved medieval buildings.

Finally, Liia told us that no visit to Tallinn was complete without a visit to the Expensive Loo!

Apparently, this facility is notorious in Tallinn for costing rather a lot of money to build. We didn’t go in, but noted that it kept good hours (0700-2200, for those interested!). You can read more about it *here* (scroll down to “Pricey public toilet in ex-Soviet republic prompts investigation”).

And then there’s the CRAFT! But I’ve told you all about *that*!