August 23
rdHappy birthday Em! 27 today. Today, as well as keeping our trip going, was spent celebrating Em's birthday. After a sleep in, which was a good start to the day as far as Em was concerned, we were up and had pancakes, bananas, and bacon for breakfast. Given we only have a small frying pan (about 15cm), there were about 20 pancakes, but they were all very small, and it seemed to take an age to cook them all. Nevertheless we cooked them up and they were much enjoyed. After skyping with her parents, and getting her small present and card, we had to do a few practical things, and made use of the internet available to us at the campground. At 12pm we left the campground and drove to Helsinki Port, where we checked in for our ferry crossing to Tallinn, Estonia. We ate lunch while waiting in the queue to board the boat.
We sailed at 2:30pm, and arrived in Tallinn at 4:30pm. Yet again we had a fantastic sailing, with flat seas, and a comfortable journey on an ultra-modern ferry. We just sat back, drank a coffee, read, and watched TV in the four-tiered, glass-fronted lounge bar on the ferry. Once we docked and drove off the boat we immediately felt the change. Driving seemed to be like ordered madness, the buildings were a mixture of very old (medieval), old communist, and new, and the road markings were hard to follow. Anyway, we successfully and safely navigated our way to the city campground only three kilometres away. When we arrived we found that it was just a big carpark, that had some not-so-great toilets and showers attached. It was convenient for us to be close to town though, so we decided to stay there anyway.
After having a snack and getting camp set up, we caught the bus into town to have a wander around, and get dinner. We went straight to the old town which was stunning. It seemed to have more character and beautiful buildings, that did not seem too artificial to be just a tourist trap. We did have a touristy dinner, a 'Lonely Planet' recommendation, which was at a restaurant called 'Olde Hansa', a medieval themed restaurant. It was done very well, with the entertaining waiting stuff in very good costumes, Em said the bathrooms were in theme, and inside the building was candle lit. We sat outside, and you provided with blankets to keep warm if required. When we arrived we were given a small glass of warm herb liquor which was nice. Then they bought out the menus, leather covered, with old parchment type pages with neat rhymes on them. Em had a slow-cooked leg of pork with beer syrup, and I had a wild boar casserole. Other choices on the menu included elk, reindeer, and bear! Each of our mains was accompanied with sauerkraut, spelt grains, berries, gerkins, and Em had gingered turnip, and I had onion jam and a herb cheese cake. They were very nice, and quite filling as well. To complement our mains we each had a mug of dark honey beer from clay mugs, a little sweet for my liking, but Em enjoyed it. For dessert we shared an apple pie (basically) with some fancy name. That finished off our dinner there. It was a good fun experience to have. After dinner we wandered around the old town a little longer, then caught the bus back to the campground and that is where Em finished her birthday – a day of celebrations spread across two countries and the Baltic Sea.
August 24th
After getting ready at the campground we decided we would walk into town today, instead of catching the bus. It was a nice walk along the seafront for about 3km, on a beautiful summers day, with not a lot of wind around. We got into the Old Town about 9:30am, and wandered around for about an hour, looking at a few different shops, and enjoying our surroundings. We ended up at the information centre, which did not give us anything we needed, but we spotted a sign across the road for a free walking tour, which started at 12pm. We went to a small cafe, had a coffee, and a good snack (Em had a pastry, and I a sandwich) because we knew it would be a very late lunch.
The walking tour was really good, and went for just over 2 ½ hours. Our guide was young, funny, and also had some good knowledge of the history of the old town. One of the highlights of the tour would have been the Aleksander Nevski Catherdral, a Russian Orthodox cathedral, similar to the one we saw in Helsinki 2 days ago, but even more impressive. The outside was amazing, the inside was even more impressive. On strange thing (to me) I saw was people taking drinks from a holy water fountain. It was a nice fountain, with a tap on it, and a single metal cup chained to the fountain for person after person to use, without cleaning it! Not really something I would do anyway. The old town still has large parts of the city wall intact, with great big towers and turrets and narrow staircases. At one point we were standing on top of the wall, looking over the lower town, and had a magnificent view of Tallinn, and its port. The tour finished off at nearly 3pm, at which time everyone was rather hungry. Em and I joined four Aussies and went to a nice restaurant for lunch. It was nice to hang out with some extra people for a time as well, although in saying that, we also enjoy not seeing to many kiwis or aussies on our travels. We want to make sure we get immersed in the countries as much as we can. We left town at about 5pm, shops, walked back to campground, got back 7:30pm. We had a quick dinner, used the internet, then went to bed.
August 25th
We were up early and made use of our close proximity to nice scenery, going for a run along the water front. We spent the morning doing all sorts of jobs on the internet, cleaning the van, emptying waste water etc before getting on the road at about 11am. We drove south to Parnu, a small Estonian seaside resort city on the west coast of Estonia. We found our campground, set up our site and got some washing soaking. It was still only mid-afternoon so went we for a walk to beach through what we can only gather was a part of the town built during the communist regime. The wooden houses were all the same, and looking rather run down. Even the foot paths were uneven, narrow, and looking much the worse for wear. It was our first true encounter with this, and it is funny what you notice. The sandy beach and sea looked quite nice, but we did not venture into the water. There was a good wind keeping things a little too cool for a swim. Instead we played on the standing sea-saw for grown-ups on the beach. It was great fun. You stand up straight holding onto the bar overhead, and jump up and down, really high. Very fun. After tiring ourselves out, we walked into town and then back to campground. It was a nice evening so I made good use of the spare time we had and did an oil and filter change on Sven. Everything went suprisingly well. We were well prepared with a plastic sheet, oil collection bucket etc and managed to do the job with minimal mess. By the time I finished this it was dinner time, and then we relaxed in van.
