5 Jul 2019. <EE> Tallinn, Estonia —
Today we went out to look about Tallinn. We went out into our street (Lai), and not far round the corner, on Harju, is an incredible bookshop. It's a second-hand bookshop, but it is so big and so well set up that it rivals the best commercial bookshops. And it has foreign language sections to boot! We spent a while just browsing its shelves, amazed!
Then we went out through the Town Hall Square, down Viru and out through the city walls and found newer part of town, just outside. There's a lovely bit of parkland, Tamsaare Park, and if you go through it and turn right along Estonia Puiestee, you find the Ravhusooper Estonia. We did this, then turned back past the outside if the Viru gate, and found Viru Turg, a clothing handcraft market outside the city walls. (There's a lot of good clothing shopping within the Old City, but it can be somewhat expensive.)
We continued past this and over the road into the Rotermann Quarter, an old industrial area that is being redeveloped with lots of trendy shops and eateries while still retaining a lot of the old industrial architecture. Fascinating! While in there, we found a wonderful little bakery — RØST — where we went in for morning coffee and to try some of their sweet rolls.
After this, we continued walking round the city, and were in another piece of parkland — Kanuti Aed — when the heavens opened! Didn't last long, and we were prepared!
Continued walking round the city, and finally came to another destination that had been recommended to us — Balti Jaama Turg. We had been told, "It's a good market". No, it's not — it's an amazing market. First up, it's a permanent installation more reminiscent of a department store. The "stalls" are more like permanent shops, and the place is CLEAN! There are food outlets inside, including a fully-fledged restaurant. We spent quite a lot of time here, totally enjoying the environment! While we were there, there was another deluge outside — but we were enjoying ourselves, and we were dry, so why even think about leaving?
Finally, we decided to leave. The rain had stopped, so we walked back into the old town, past the towering cliffs as we walked in past the Railway Station (where we had first arrived) and along Nunne (where our taxi had brought us the day before). We were just back inside the Old Town when we realised that the rain was beginning again. We noticed that we were just beside a Puppet Museum, the NUKU Museum of Puppetry Arts. Well, it was inside and out of the rain, so why not? And we like puppets anyway. So in we went. It was definitely worth while. There were examples of every form of puppetry we knew about, and more besides. One of their prize possessions is Tiiu, the oldest marionette in Estonia, created in 1938 for the Estonian Drama Theatre and State Youth Theatre. There are also some Steam Punk puppet automatons (no, we'd never met these before!) from more recent years!
After enjoying over an hour in the Puppet Museum, we decided that the rain situation would allow us to leave. On our way back to the hotel, we happened upon the little blue tourist train that has so amused us last time we were here. We finally returned to our hotel, to find that we had been moved into the downstairs room we had been promised. We had told the that we didn't mind twin beds, so that's what we had. The room was very comfortable, and on the ground floor! Sheer luxury!
A bit later, we went out again for a while, went down to the Town Hall Square, and to the Olde Hanse shop, which is set up as a medieval store, and sells that type of hand-made goods. Warren bought a couple of herbal beers to try. The verdict — disgusting! Well, let's be fair — not to his taste! But it was an interesting trial. The girl in the shop was obviously enjoying her work, and was delightfully refreshing.
Anyway, this brought the day to a close. We went back to the room where Warren continued blogging for a while, then we went to sleep to be sure we would have enough energy for the excitement of tomorrow — Laulupeo rongkäik (the Procession of the Song Festival) and XXVII laulupeo avakontsert „Õpetajale” (27th Estonian Song Festival opening concert "To the Teacher").
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