Yesterday we took it easy and spent time wandering around Pärnu some more. We sat in a couple of lovely parks and also visited a market. The market was very low key by comparison with Riga's huge market in the Zeppelin Hangars. We walked along the river but it also was very ordinary. The nicest parts of Pärnu are the old town, the parks and some of the inner residential areas which have lovely wooden and stone houses, with very high pitched roofs. There was one for sale not far from our hotel and I was curious to find out what it was like inside and how much it cost. We walked past it many times and on one occasion it was open for exhibition but unfortunately they were closing it when we got there. Oh well - we didn't get to find out. Rob thought I might be tempted to buy it! It certainly would have made a nice B and B. Rob hurried me along before I had a chance to make a last minute dash into the house.
As we were walking back to the hotel lots of cars drove past honking their horns. The first car was decorated with flowers and ribbons, so it was obviously a wedding. There were about 30 cars in the procession all with the same colored ribbons tied to the radio antenna. They all charged through a big intersection with five streets coming into it, and one poor sod had to sit there in his car for about 10 minutes before he could cross the intersection.
Today we set off to catch the coach to Tartu. The trip passed through lots of little towns and villages as we drove from the west to the east of Estonia. Along the way, people got on and off the coach, but the whole process was much more orderly than what we experienced in Latvia. The driver on the coach in Latvia was like a cranky pants with most of the local passengers, however today's driver was very calm and accommodating to everyone.
The countryside is lush and green, and as flat as Latvia, with only one very slight hilly area. The trip took about three and a half hours, and was very relaxing. As we came into Tartu, we drove through sprawling suburbia and past big shopping centres etc. Both of us realised we had forgotten how big Tartu is by comparison to Pärnu. Tartu has Estonia's second largest population. We were deposited at the bus station and made our way to our hotel. Before too long we crossed over from the new part to the old part of Tartu via expansive pedestrian streets and it was like another world. There are many attractive buildings and floral displays and parks. Our hotel is right in the centre and is another quaint hotel, like our one in Parnu. Our view consists of roof tops, which contrasts with the garden views of the Pärnu hotel. It is right opposite the Tartu University main building which is reported as being one of Estonia's finest neo-classical buildings.
We went to the supermarket in search of a few provisions, including milk for cups of tea, and some bottled water. The fridge in our hotel is not very cold, so we thought we had better buy a small carton of milk rather than a large one, and replenish it each day so it stays fresh. This all turned out to be a bit of a funny saga. The first supermarket we went to, was a very nice (and quite expensive) shop. We found a small carton of milk but the water was three times the price we had been paying, so I refused to buy it. Off we went to the second supermarket, which had the cheap water but not the small carton of milk. Rob picked a carton but I wasn't convinced it was milk, as the words on the carton were different to what our dictionary said. Despite all my protestations about buying this carton of liquid to put into our tea, Rob insisted on buying it. We went back to our hotel to have our cuppa and as soon as Rob poured the substance out of the carton into the tea, it curdled and smelled odd. I thought it might have been sour cream but as we have wifi in the hotel, I immediately searched for an explanation of what we had bought and it turned out to be a European fermented drink! Whereupon I was saying words to the effect of 'I told you I didn't think it was milk and you wouldn't listen to me!' Rob tipped it down the sink and we went out again to buy proper milk this time! instead of trapzing back to the expensive supermarket we went to a mini supermarket nearby, and found exactly what we wanted, and went back to the hotel to have that much needed cuppa!
