An early start! We were picked up at our hotel and taken to the Moskovskiy Station to catch our train to Tallin, leaving at 6:25am!
The cabin was a comfortable 4-berth, which we shared with a delightful young lass. This was a 7-hour trip to Tallinn, it was wet out and a good day for travel! Suzie was able to make herself comfortable for the trip. We got in at 12:45pm local time. Our timing is impeccable. We have arrived in time for the last four days of Laulupidu, the five-yearly Estonian Song Festival. The population of Tallinn swells by about 100,000 for this week, so you won't be surprised to learn that we booked our hotel six months ago, the first booking we made for our entire trip.
Our hotel in Tallin, the St. Olav, is in the old town, on Lai, the street that runs virtually the whole length of the old town to St Olav's Cathedral, the tallest building in the town! The room is magnificent, but it takes 75 steps to get to it. Not good for Suzie. Can't do anything about it until tomorrow, but we will then be moved to a similar ground-floor room.
Town Hall Square
The Town Hall
We've been to Tallinn before, so the town is familiar territory! We went out in the afternoon and walked about a little to re-familiarize ourselves with the place. More intensive exploration tomorrow!
A close friend of ours, Gisela, sings in a Baltic Choir in Brisbane. This choir has joined with numerous other choirs from all round Australia, and they have been accepted as participants in the Song Festival. We met up with Griz and Keith, and arranged to go out to dinner with them, to catch up and to swap stories about the upcoming festivities. We went out to a restaurant, 'Leib' (whose name is a cognate with the Russian хлеб, khleb — bread). Great food. Great conversation. Altogether, a pleasant night!
Walking back to the Hotel after 11pm, we were taken by the activity still going on in the streets, and the fact that the sky was still light! Tallinn gets just as much part of the phenomenon that St Petersburg calls its "White Nights"!
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