Estonia and Helsinki

Hello everyone! Sorry for the delay in posting – but internet access isn’t always easy… Hope you enjoy this next post – Riga to Tallinn then on to Helsinki. Will post one more from London before we head home – incorporating St Petersburg!

Sunday 17th – Riga to Tallinn

Fortunately the bus station is just on the outskirts of Riga’s old town and not far from our hotel, so we had an easy start to the day. And – surprise, surprise – an easy bus journey! No issues over seat allocation this time. Perhaps we’re learning… Actually, we did invest an extra couple of dollars this journey (literally only a couple of dollars – bus travel is very cheap here) to upgrade to first class. That means we didn’t travel at the front of the bus, but when boarding we walked down the aisle – through a little frosted glass door – and down to the back. Here we found 16 big, leather seats – all with tables. We also received a complimentary bottle of water and block of chocolate! So maybe that’s why there were no issues with seating this time. Also, there was just us plus one other person in this area – and she got off half way through the journey – so it was like our own private area and no-one to fight with!

It’s approximately a five and a half hour bus journey from Riga to Tallinn. As with the journey from Lithuania to Latvia, we passed through lots of different scenes – forest, farming, small villages. It was really interesting. And once again we witnessed a beautiful sunset.

First class!

Arrived in Tallinn after dark and successfully negotiated yet another taxi system (like buses – they’re all different!) to get to our hotel – a 14th century building which was once a merchant’s house.

Tallinn was once a walled city – much of the city wall and many of the wall’s towers are still standing. Inside the city wall is the ‘old town’ – and we’re sure it’s no surprise to you (given our love of cobbled lanes and medieval architecture) that our hotel is right in the middle of the old town.

Even though our introduction to Tallinn happened after dark, we saw enough to know we would love it here… despite the fact that it’s freezing!!

Monday 18th – Tallinn

Our hotel is just a few meters from the old town square, which has been the central focus of life in Tallinn since the 11th century.

We visited the Town Hall (built between 1371 and 1404). You can wander through the council chambers and then visit the cellar which houses an excellent museum about the fortifications of Tallinn.

The old town square

We acquired a map of a ‘walking tour’ of Tallinn, so spent the rest of the day following the map, visiting all the sights along the way.

The city walls and towers

You can climb around some of the towers and walk parts of the city wall - we had lots of fun here




View from one of the lookouts - you can see the Gulf of Finland in the background

Above the old town wall and some towers

This building was the KGB headquarters during the Soviet occupation. Note the bricked up basement windows - apparently to stop passers by overhearing whatever was happening inside.

We had heard that every Monday night there was a classical music concert in the Holy Spirit Church so decided to spend the evening there. We enjoyed a beautiful performance – a soprano, pianist and violinist entertained us for over an hour. The highlight of the evening was when they performed Ave Maria.

It was about -12 degrees today! It’s also getting quite windy and apparently more wind is coming our way over the next couple of days – from Siberia! Locals are telling us they haven't experienced a winter like this in years.


Tuesday 19th – Tallinn

Spent the morning at the fascinating Museum of Occupation and Fight for Freedom. The exhibits in this museum outline the events that occurred over a 50 year period when Tallinn was occupied by either the Nazis or the Soviets. It’s a fantastic, well thought out museum. Even the building itself has meaning – it’s a new building with floor to ceiling glass walls. This is to signify transparency.

The museum - inside and out. Carmen - thought you'd appreciate the photo of the Soviet hairdresser's chair!

Spent the rest of the day getting off the beaten tourist track (we try to do this in every city) and exploring the ‘new town’. Actually managed to get lost in the new town!

Where are we???

But everything happens for a reason. We decided to check our map and warm up in a little bar down a side street. There was only one other man in there – a local man born and bred in Tallinn. He was about our age and spoke excellent English. His stories of how he has spent his life were really interesting – particularly after we’d just visited the museum of occupation.

Finished the night at a lovely little restaurant with an open fireplace. A very much needed open fireplace – today it was about -14 degrees! Those Siberian winds are icy.

Now that's a pizza - don't you think, Ryan?

Wednesday 20th – Tallinn

Today we walked, and walked, and walked to the beautiful Kadriorg Park. Kadriorg means Catherine’s Valley. In this park, Peter the Great built a palace for Catherine I. The palace was built between 1718 and 1736. Apparently Peter himself even helped with the construction – laying three bricks!

Entering the park - swan pond(??) in the background

Peter's palace

There's always time for a snowball fight!

There are many beautiful buildings (from Peter’s time) in this enormous park – each housing some sort of museum. The focus of our trip, however, was a visit to KUMU (aka the Art Museum of Estonia). This is a very new art gallery (below) which opened in 2006. In 2008 it was awarded the title of ‘European Museum of the Year’. The works on display here range from pieces completed in the early 18th century right up to very contemporary pieces – a great collection of Estonian art.

This room was amazing - completely filled with busts - some people known to us, some unknown (note Lenin in the top left hand corner). For each one mounted on the wall there was a tiny hidden speaker and all the busts were speaking at once. Just softly - and all saying something different - telling a story. It was really eerie.

Phil has a thing for pop art - and fancies himself as a hot shot photographer!!

Spent the evening at the Estonian National Opera – My Fair Lady – performed in Estonian! For some reason we had thought there was going to be English surtitles – but no! It was very helpful to know the stories and the songs – and interesting to hear them performed in another language. It’s very obvious that ‘rain’, ‘Spain’ and ‘plain’ don’t rhyme in Estonian – but it was also very obvious what Eliza said at the races! Great fun.

Oh wouldn't it be lovely...

Another chilly -14 degree day! Let’s just say we don’t stroll home from our evening outings!

This is our last night in Tallinn – tomorrow we journey to Helsinki.

Thursday 21st – Tallinn to Helsinki

Good-bye Tallinn. You'd love it here, Mum!

Had to be organised reasonably early today to catch a boat across the Gulf of Finland to Helsinki. Louise decided she desperately had to have that top she saw in the shop in Tallinn’s old town yesterday – but the shop didn’t open until 10am. ‘We can do it, Phil! We can be there when the shop opens, and still make it to the ferry terminal for 10:30 check-in!’ Well – we were there when the shop opened – despite having to rush through the bitterly cold old town of Tallinn. This was like no other morning we’ve had to date – it was -19 degrees! However, where there’s a will there’s a way. We managed to buy the top, get back to the hotel, call a cab and journey to the terminal – just in time to be the last people on the boat! (I’m not really sure if I like the top now, but Phil says I have to wear it every day for a month! L.)

Wow – what a journey. We were on a huge ferry, and yet we could actually feel it scraping its way through the icy seas. The photos tell the story…

Leaving Tallinn by ferry...

...and the water gets icy...

...and icier...

...until it's so thick and white! Is this a boat or a sleigh??

Arriving in Helsinki

After a couple of hours, we reached Finland. Spent the afternoon and evening exploring Helsinki. We’re only here for a couple of days so want to enjoy every minute.

As the day wore on, it just got colder and colder. Every time we exited a warm building and went out into the cold again it got more and more intense. When it reached -20 degrees we decided to call it a night! This is unbelievably cold! We know we won’t get much sympathy from you all at home – we see the weather reports and know it’s really hot there – and to be honest, we’re glad to be here! It seems easier to get warm than it does to get cool…


Friday 22nd – Helsinki

Armed with our trusty map we ventured off to find out how to get to Suomenlinna
(fortress of Finland) – two small islands connected by a little bridge in the Gulf of Finland. Negotiated the Helsinki tram system and then found the departure point for the little ferry that cuts through the ice on the hour, every hour, ferrying people to and from Suomenlinna. Another exciting journey!

A fortress was built on the islands in 1748. A community of people now lives there and there are many little shops and cafes – although hardly anything opens at this time of year! The purpose of our visit, though, was to wander around the ruins of the fort. It was just beautiful – really desolate. Freezing cold and just so windy! In summer it’s probably packed with people, but at this time of the year there’s hardly anyone around.

Our little ferry - and the journey across the water(?) ahead!

The fortress

A jetty at a remote part of the island - don't think we'll wait for the boat to arrive next summer!

Leaving the island - you can see how the boat is leaving a trail through the ice as it ploughs its way back to Helsinki

Made our way back to the mainland and spent the afternoon hopping on and off trams around the city, exploring lots of different neighbourhoods – some tourist spots and some out of the way areas – essentially admiring the diverse architecture (and shoe shops!) of Helsinki.

Exploring Helsinki

Our evening was spent at Kiasma (the Museum of Contemporary Art). This was a really fun art gallery – very relaxed and interactive – and it’s open at night time! We really enjoyed ourselves here.

Helsinki has been great – we’re really glad we visited.

Next stop – Russia!

Latvia

Tuesday 12^th Vilnius to Riga

Another traveling day – this time by bus. What a great way to travel! You just see so much. Readers of the last blog will appreciate that we have learned our lesson when it comes to seating allocation, though. We boarded our Riga bound bus only to find someone else sitting in our seat! Remember now – this is not unusual! Confidence is a wonderful thing, however. This time we stood our ground. Initially, we asked the bus driver if it was ok to sit anywhere (naturally this was our assumption). He replied, ‘Do you not like your seats?’ When we pointed out that our seats were fine but someone else just happened to be in them, he said we could sit anywhere. ‘OK,’ we said, pointing to the seats immediately behind the driver, ‘we’ll sit here.’ ‘Except here,’ he said. ‘OK then, we’ll sit here,’ we said – pointing to the seats across the aisle from the ones directly behind the driver.’ ‘And except here,’ the driver said. ‘Well then, we want our seats,’ we said. Well… the person sitting in our seats VERY reluctantly moved so that we could sit in our allocated seats. ‘Hooray!!’ we quietly celebrated. ‘Victory is ours!!’ We sat ourselves down after popping our things in the overhead rack. We were feeling very proud of ourselves (secretly gloating, in fact) when we realized that these seats actually weren’t all that great – as there was a giant pillar immediately to our left which completely impeded the view. Never mind – it’s the principle that counts! Anyway, the view across the aisle from the other side of the bus was much better so we averted our eyes to the right.

View from the left hand side of the bus (when leaning forward!) - a farming area in Lithuania

The sun sets as we enter Latvia

When all was said and done, we really enjoyed the journey and the view. We passed through beautiful forests, farming areas and tiny villages, eventually arriving in Riga by nightfall.

Found our way to our hotel quite easily and then immediately made our way to the Latvian National Opera House (literally 2 minutes walk away) to organize our tickets for the next few nights’ entertainment.

Wednesday 13^th – Riga

Wow! Riga is absolutely beautiful. When you arrive in a city after dark, you don’t really get the chance to appreciate its beauty. We are staying in the ‘old town’ of Riga – otherwise known as ‘Vecriga’. It is World Heritage listed – essentially because of its beautiful cathedrals, gorgeous city squares, cobbled laneways and crumbling castle walls.

Our first stop today was St Peter’s Lutheran Church which is about 800 years old. It has a beautiful spire – and usually you can climb to the top of this spire for a fantastic view across Riga – but today it was closed because of the fog. We enjoyed the ground level of the cathedral anyway.

Us in one of the main squares in the old town. Directly behind us is the Blackheads' House (built for the Blackheads guild of German merchants). At the left of the shot you can just make out the spire of St Peter's. You can see why it was closed due to fog!

Our next stop was the Museum of Occupation in Latvia. We spent a few hours here soaking up the fascinating and sometimes graphic exhibits outlining Latvia’s Soviet and Nazi occupations from WWII up until 1991.

At this point, we probably need to emphasise that it is absolutely, positively freezing here. We’ve come to realize here in the Baltics that when one ceases to have any feeling in one’s fingers or toes, it’s ‘cuppa time’. That means ducking into the closest café for a warming cup of tea and a ‘defrost’ by the heater. On resumption of feeling, the exploring continues.

Literally spent the rest of the day wandering – visiting many, many churches, getting lost in the plethora of laneways and stopping for the odd ‘cuppa time’. Riga is a truly beautiful city. There is just so much beauty in the architecture here.

These houses are known as The Three Brothers. The one on the right is over 600 years old. Apparently the windows at the top are so small because during the middle ages, how much property tax one paid in Riga was determined by the size of one's windows!

Finished the day with a fantastic performance at the Latvian National Opera House – Der Sandmann. This is a beautiful yet dark, contemporary ballet about the sandman. Most of us grew up thinking the sandman was the being who gently popped sand into our eyes to send us off into dreamland… but this ballet portrayed quite a different perspective! Won’t spoil the story for you – google it if you’d like to know more. Anyway – we loved it and it was an amazing production. Looking forward to seeing more of this ballet company.

Inside the Latvian National Opera House

And outside the Opera House! This beautiful building is set beside a park and a canal which are beautifully lit at night. Despite the sub-zero temperatures we had to have a wander...

Thursday 14^th – Riga

Today we focused our attention on the Art Nouveau areas of Riga. Riga is quite synonymous with Art Nouveau as it boasts over 750 buildings decorated in this style – more than anywhere else in the world. We saw some amazing buildings decorated with twisted floral wreaths, masks, fantastic birds and animals – many were quite unique. You can really lose yourself in the many streets filled with gorgeous buildings – simply ‘looking up’ to see the beauty.

Walked back to the ‘old town’ via the most beautiful park. It is truly a winter wonderland here. Enjoyed ourselves walking along the city canals and playing in the snow.

This bridge across a canal is covered with 'love padlocks'. It is a bit of a tradition for newly married couples to put a padlock, engraved with their names, onto the bridge and then throw the key into the canal.

Spent some time in the afternoon at the History Museum of Latvia which has some fabulous exhibits outlining chronologically the way in which people have lived in this part of the world since the Stone Age.

Finished the day at the Latvian National Opera House – this time enjoying the opera Werther – a love story about a couple who cannot be together because she is promised to another… he ends up killing himself. Apparently when the book was originally written in the late 1700s, several young men were so influenced by the story that they began to dress like the character Werther, and some even took their own lives in the same way. Another fabulous production.

Friday 15^th – Riga

Our last full day in Riga – as tomorrow we plan to venture further from our base.

We woke to the most beautiful clear blue skies – such a change from the previous two days. This was a perfect day to climb the spire of St Peter’s Cathedral. We were rewarded with fantastic views across Riga.

Continued our stroll through Riga. This is a place where one can literally wander for days and days and days and see new things at every turn.

The Powder Tower - dating back to the 1300s. There are nine Russian cannonballs embedded into the walls of this tower - from attacks during the 1600s and 1700s.

Spent the morning in the ‘old town’, finding heaps more interesting things to see, including the Latvian Photographic Museum, which contained fantastic photos of Riga’s recent history.

Literally spent hours in another beautiful central city park – enjoying the winter wonderland.

Phil walking across a frozen canal

Ventured out of the old town to explore some more of Riga before making our way to the 26^th floor of probably the most lavish hotel in the city (not ours!!). We had heard this was an absolute ‘must do’ as the bar on this level affords the most beautiful views across the city – especially at sunset. We headed there at around 3pm (yes – nearly sunset!!) – dressed in our jeans and snow boots. We had also heard that this was quite a ritzy bar – but were we bothered? Not a bit! (Well – maybe just a bit…) Turns out most other people were wearing jeans so all was ok (didn't see too many others in snow boots, though!).

Enjoyed a couple of beverages here and took advantage of the view before heading off for this evening’s entertainment – The Nutcracker at the Latvian National Opera House. This was a beautiful performance – one of the best versions we’ve seen. Riga is amazing!

Saturday 16^th – Sigulda (Latvia)

We had set aside today for a trip to the woods beyond Riga. In summer, Latvians venture to the woods to walk in the forest, pick berries and mushrooms and enjoy the beautiful lakes and castle ruins. In winter, it is a beautiful, snow-covered wonderland.

The Gauja National Park (Latvia’s first) was founded in 1973. The main town – and our destination for today – is Sigulda – approximately 50km east of Riga.

We decided to take the bus there (just a local mini-bus) and the train back. Interesting…

We bought our bus tickets at the bus station. We had plenty of time before our bus departed so we checked out the Saturday morning market across the way. This is where local people buy their weekly provisions – fruit, vegetables, meat, fish – a real experience.

After stocking up on home baked goodies, we made our way back to the bus station. We knew we had allocated seats so were feeling quite relaxed about the whole thing when we presented ourselves at the right platform at the right time. We’re never really bothered about being the first people on the bus (even at home in Brisbane!) and usually let those who are more anxious about such things board the bus before us. So as usual we were standing at the back of the line, watching other people push through to board the bus first (with their market provisions in tow). We reached a point where no-one was boarding the bus – but there was still a queue. The bus driver was calling out something – and everyone was looking at us. How were we to know that he called you on board according to your seat allocation?? Suddenly it became obvious that everyone was waiting for us. Sheepishly, we boarded and took our allocated seats – no-one was into seat swapping here!! Every journey is different. You just can’t tell…

Sat quietly all the way to Sigulda and then enjoyed a fantastic afternoon in this beautiful part of the world. The photos say it all.

The beautiful Sigulda Church - built in 1225 and then rebuilt in the 1600s and 1700s.

The ruins of Sigulda Medieval Castle - built between 1207 and 1226 as a knight's stronghold.

View across the valley to Turaida Castle - founded in 1214

Couldn't resist gettng the cable car across the valley and the Gauja River. This is a little metal box that swings from a tiny cable meters above the tree tops.

Views of the Gauja River from the cable car

How can you resist making a snow angel?

Looking over the ski slopes of Sigulda

Met a lovely couple from England on the cable car - it's always nice to chat with fellow travellers. Journeyed back to Riga together in a very Soviet looking train (all laminex and stainless steel). Just getting on and off these trains without the aid of a platform – climbing down steel ladders onto snow and ice covered tracks – is an experience in itself.

Walked back to our hotel, looked at our watches and realized we had just enough time to head to the Latvian National Opera House and buy tickets for tonight’s performance (why not? it’s just around the corner). This time we saw a ballet – Tango plus Voyages. A thoroughly enjoyable, very contemporary production. It’s just so impressive that in this part of the world (indeed across most of Europe) they manage a different performance, a different production each night – all presented by the same company. And every night is packed out – either completely, or very nearly a full house. There are lessons to be learned here!

Finished the day off with a great meal at a local restaurant. Riga is fantastic – so much to see and do – we’d love to come here again.

But tomorrow brings another adventure… Riga to Tallinn, Estonia. Another bus journey…

Goodbye to our hotel in Riga!