More of Old Town Tallinn

Ok so we were enjoying the amazing pancakes you saw in the last post in Rakvere when my sister's phone rang and it was our mom wondering where we were... Turns out they were waiting for us to get back to celebrate the independence day with style. Oh the infamous sandwich cake that I always eat when home! It's delicious and only one! shop has it! And I couldn't find any this time :( (yes this epic failure must be noted down). She did manage to find a sandwich cake, just a different flavour... Plus potato salad, viinerid, and CAKE! yum!

Roll on the next day after an amazing foodie weekend. We went to the Open Air Museum. Unfortunately the weather wasn't the best, trying to rain but luckily didn't. We saw a really fancy rooster, all the old farm houses, their summer kitchens outside (he was so surprised and worried about my nan having an oven outside on the roofed terrace, where every summer she cooks and eats, he had never ever seen anything like it, until now where we found out it's a long long tradition) and tried kiiking - made Mr. Specail nauseous. The newest (I think) house in the museum was exactly like ours (before renovation), pretty cool to find your house, wallpapers, furniture etc in a museum already :D

Obviously had a lunch break there which serves oldy traditional food, with fresh pickles mmmmmm....

The evening took us to another trip to the Old Town, another part of it now, the new Freedom Square and the BEST pancake place in the World. Huge portions, cheap prices! Needed a good walk around all souvenir shops to walk it all off. (fun fact, it's quite hard to find a good souvenir shop since most of them sell Russian things and amber which really don't have any connection with Estonia...). Ooooh and that night we found a busker who was playing the Game of Thrones theme tune on a violin! So awesome!!!

Cheese balls!!!

Garlic bread!!!!

Hello there!

We also went to the Fat Margarita which Mr. Special seems to think is one of the main attractions... I think he just heard the word Fat and was fascinated ever since. In reality it's just a big big tower on the city wall, with a maritime? museum in it. Nothing too special :D Pretty nonetheless. Further down from there we stumbled upon the Annual flower festival where different themed gardens are set up... the mermaid one was freaky, the bee one had a tiny maze shaped like a beehive.

The next day was supposed to be a better day in terms of weather so we chose to go see Kadriorg Palace and gardens. But as soon as we had to step out of the tram it started raining. Heavy! Really heavy, likked soaked instantly heavy. Ok can't exactly wait at the tram stop until it's over, so we legged it to the nearby cafe, to wait it out. Had a little cake and coffee to cheer us up but when we were done the rain still wasn't, although it wasn't as bad so we made the decision to hastily go straight to the castle. Mr. Special managed to quickly take a photo of the swan pond, I had initially wanted to walk around that park as well as it is divine.

The Kadriorg Palace was built for Catherine I of Russia and now houses an art museum. When we were finally done exploring all the art, it had finally stopped raining so we could head outside to check out the garden behind the Palace. Behind that garden is another Palace where our president lives and works.

We also went to have a look at the Japanese Garden in one of the corners of that huge grounds.

Since Mr. Special's dad is a big football fan, obviously he wanted to go and visit our local Arena, A le Coq Arena which luckily isn't too far from my house so we could walk there. There is  a big sport shop there as well but even that is quite poor in the souvenir selection... clearly football is not all the fuss in here :D We did manage to find a scarf and a pin luckily...

Don't think I've ever been to the TV Tower in Tallinn... until now :)

And guess what we did on our last day??? Went to the Old Town obviously! :D

This time climbed the Oleviste Church tower which at the time it was built was the highest tower in the World! Don't worry there are a few seats half way up the tower to catch your breath before the stunning city views.

Lunch time! This time we opted for a real medieval feel of a cafe, which served soup, pies (wild boar, deer etc traditional meat + carrot, cabbage) and sausages. There were no lights and it was superbusy, we were lucky to find a table, missing a seat at first but as soon as we got all the food a seat became available as well :) A really cool place! glad we found it!

After that we made our way to the gallery of my favourite artist Navitrolla. I bought some postcards with his work on. I love his quirky style and humour and used to have a calendar but haven't found that in a few years :(

Finally I had to show you how crazy Mr. Special went... I don't know how we managed to get it all in the suitcase and it was only 1kg over! Ooooh he lost it, because we didn't get there "early" enough and the queue was HUGE. Tbh I wasn't expecting the queue to be that big, can't actually remember the last time I travelled with a big suitcase...

This is what milk looks like

Ttyl ;)
Jazzz...

First time home

For Mr. Special that is... to my home ;) Oh he's been waiting for this trip for years! Years! :D And finally it happened.

First stop: Police

I needed to get a new passport (since someone ruined it last year...) and it's the Police and Border Control that deal with them. The office used to be about half an hours away from my house and used to have horrendous queues, I don't think it I've ever waited there less than an hour. And that was when they had a couple offices across town. Now they've moved into one really inconvenient location.. no public transport can get close to it... But it took us less than half an hour I think... In and out and done - hopefully it would be done quickly enough so I could pick it up before I leave again...

Then home time :) Fooooooooood! Proper sandwiches ;)

What could be a better impression of Tallinn than the old town! That's where we were headed for the evening. A nice stroll through the streets of the upper town. Although we started off having waffles at the newly renovated market. Soooo pretty, but doesn't it have quite a bit of wasted space between the "houses"/stalls? Or maybe we got there at a really quiet time and that space is needed to breathe fresh air between the masses of people that flock to it during busy times? Back to the waffles that did not disappoint :) Although it was more like an ice cream cone... with a cream filling (not ice cream). But still heavenly good and the little unit was decorated very cute, in tender pastel pink. I think I first heard about this company a year (2?) ago when someone ordered these for their birthday party and wanted to try them ever since, but always forgot to go (priorities... :() until now!

Once tummies filled (again) we went to explore the city and decided to take the stairs up to the first viewing platform. Ah these pretty red roofs.

From there we made our way through the narrow streets between government buildings "wow so patriotic nearly every house has a flag up" to Toompea Castle (and it's shop - I didn't even know it had a shop). Unfortunately both the Russian Orthodox Church and Toompea Castle were under repairs so not the nicest of photo opportunities. From there to the Danish King's Garden that has had an upgrade since the last time I was there :) A good upgrade, it's much more gardeny, with flowers and pretty shrubs, it had been quite bare beforehand. And who could not notice the 3 eery statues of monks? Creepy...

Down the short leg to Rataskaevu where they used drown cats in... And where you can spot a false window, where the devil had had his wedding before disappearing... Spooky!

And the grand finale that day was of course the Town Hall square.

We finished the day off with a bbq with my friends. Which was preceded by a trip to the supermarket - if you ask Mr. Special this was the highlight of his day, maybe the entire trip even since once he knew the location and proximity of the supermarket he was a frequent customer :D But he was very impressed by what we do for our normal/plain BBQ. In the UK this would be considered a feast and too much effort...

Fun fact, the next morning when Mr. Special was itching to go to the supermarket and asked if we needed anything from there: bread and sour cream. And after I tried to explain how to get to the supermarket and where the sour cream is located in there and what it looks like, my smallest bro (7) sighed and said "I'll go with him, shall I?" :D In Estonian of course because he hardly understands English yet... And they did go, just the two of them, and it was a successful trip. I can just imagine Mr. Special trying to talk the entire way (he's talkative like that) and my lil bro just pointing to things without saying anything (he doesn't talk to strangers or when strangers are around even in Estonian not to mention trying to utter anything in English) :D

The reason we came this time was my family reunion! About 50 people came together and most I even vaguely recognised from photos and faint memories. For some reason our side of the family, my grandmother is one of 6, has been quite distant from the others. They kept talking how they spent they're summers all together etc. I wonder why me and my sister were never taken there... We are/were the same age as the other kids, now 20 somethings. Anyway the reunion was held in the middle of Estonia, in a nice rented house, with a huge pond right next to it and a lake with a proper beach 5 minutes away. And it was a warm warm sunny day! Major regrets for not taking anything to swim in! Luckily I did wear a dress so could at least get my feet wet and take thousands of photos. The photoshoot was rudely interrupted by the looming thunder clouds tat rapidly came over us and made everything so dark. It started pouring down heavily just before we made it inside. And they had been taking group photos at that time... :D Without us...

Mr. Special again was super impressed by the food on offer. We had a traditional long table with all the usual food which he called simple and fresh. Hardly anything fried or deep fried or in pastry in yellow colour like you would find party food in the UK (processed food). Fresh salads, fish, potatoes and so on so on. Healthy food but so simple to make. And he finally gets what I mean when I want something fresh to eat.

The next morning we made a fairly early escape to discover some of the Eastern part of Estonia and lake Peipus since we were in the area (sort of). And made our way to Alatskivi Castle, apparently the prettiest castle in Estonia which was inspired by Balmoral.

We also found the National Geographic yellow rectangle near there! Awesome! Ever since I heard they've put a few up in Estonia I've wanted to see one and now all of a sudden by luck I could. Another photoshoot time!!!!!!!!!!!

Then the best onion pie ever! Still dreaming of that. We had two to try, one just an onion pie and the other with added chanterelle - the only mushroom I will willingly eat. And it was DELICIOSO!!!

From there a quick visit to Lake Peipus which separates us from Russia! So we nearly went to the border of it... well sort of if we pretend hard enough. It's only on the other side of the water.

To finish the day off we went to Rakvere to get a glimpse of the famous Bull and to peek inside the castle ruins but deemed it to be too expensive and more aimed for kids for us to pay to go in. Opted for a nice pancake cafe instead. MMMMMM savoury pancakes! With sour cream sauce almost always added. Now that's what I dearly miss!

For some reason I thought I could fit all of our trip into one post... This is clearly not happening so this will continue!

Ttyl ;)
Jazzz...