12th May Tallin, Estonia

Tallinn , Estonia

 

 

I got woken up by the ship’s horn at 5.30am I thought there was a boat in the way but it kept on going off so I went to investigate and have a walk up on deck 10.  It wasn’t very pretty, thick fog all around and drizzle but I walked over a mile, took some photos and then headed back to the cabin to get ready for Tallin and breakfast! 

 

TV Tower as we are approaching Tallin

 

Port view

 

Looking over the old town of Tallin

 

The spires in the old town.  That is exactly where are heading to on the Hop on Hop off Bus

 

Bit chilly start to the morning, gloves and hats on!!

 

Amy looking chilly!!

 

Thanks Captain we will be back before 5pm

 

The skyline behind with our cruise ship name

 

Here comes the bus!!

 

 

 

Colin’s fact about Tallinn – 52% of Tallinn was bombed during World War II but the city gates and walls were left untouched, amazing!!

 

 A not very nice name for the round building built in 1529 called Fat Margaret’s Tower

 

Driving by the Song Festival Grounds big archway behind the trees

 

Russalka Monument to mark the site where a ship sank

 

Not sure what this is but it is one of the communist buildings

 

A cute little yellow church (St John’s Almshouse Church) in amongst the new modern office buildings

 

Alexandr Nevsky Cathedral (Russian church) absolutely beautiful building.  We went inside and the interior was gold and deep colours, stunning!  We weren’t allowed to take photos inside, sorry!

 

Three happy souls

 

Part of the city wall and St Nicholas Church, the city had loads of spires

 

Government buildings, pretty in pink!

 

Little cobbled streets in the Old Town with it felt like spires at every corner, absolutely beautiful but wouldn't want to take our suitcases along here!!!

 

 

Streets are now named after authors or poets from Tallinn but Colin thought this looked much more like Bob Marley!!

 

 

Flying the flag of Estonia!

 

Cathedral of St Mary of Virgin one of Tallinn’s medieval churches with a prayer house, the prayer house dates before the 13^th century, wow and a cute yellow souvenir shop

 

Cathedral of St Mary of Virgin full view from further away

 

 

Side view of Cathedral of St Mary the Virgin 

 

Mixture of buildings on this street with Alexandr Nevsky Cathedral at the end of the street

 

City walls

 

Walking through and along part of the city walls

 

Rooftops and spires!

 

Amy admiring the view of St Nicholas Church’s spire

 

City wall museum and café

 

Cute bird feeder!

 

Then in amongst all the old they through in modern art!!

 

So Amy stands there and says ‘on the news tonight’ ha ha!!  Very funny!!

 

St Nicholas Church built in 1230

 

Aiming for the next spire!

 

Side view of St Nicholas Church

The Town Hall Square similar ‘oldie worldie’ feel but not a match on Brugge square!

 

 

Town Hall in Town Hall Square, appropriately named!

 

Town Hall Square

 

Colly jolly catching us up after his map reading!

 

Pretty buildings

 

 

Beautiful strolling round the old streets and the beautiful buildings on either side of the streets

 

The oldest church Holy Spirit Church and the oldest working clock in Tallinn

 

The building opposite the Holy Spirit Church dated 1410

 

Cute looking hotel with all the flags flying

 

Vene Street – Vene means Russian in Estonian where the wealthiest built their homes not sure whose house this was or is but it is amazing!

 

St Peter and St Paul’s Cathedral

 

And then we walked through St Catherine’s Passage connecting two streets

 

With tombstones on the way down the passage

Beautiful in St Catherine’s passage

 

And then you come out onto the city wall and city gates, stunning and then I wondered what could the yellow building on the right next to the city wall be, thinking it was apartments or something and then we see a sign for a strip and massage parlour open 12.00 – 06.00!!  There were quite a few of them dotted around the old town area, Amy didn’t know what they were but she just said wow they are open a long time and who would be up early enough to go get a massage before 6am, hopefully we can keep her naivety for many, many years to come!!

It was really weird there were stalls against the wall which were really cute but they were selling all the same things, big thick woollen jumpers, hats and scarves.  But surely to sell anything you would sell something different to what the next stall was selling but there were about 20 of them all in a row all very, very similar stock!!  Didn’t make any sense to the three of us?!?

 

3990  St Olav’s Church and Tower so tall I couldn’t get the spire all in and it was surrounded by buildings everywhere just squashed into a tiny area!

 

My personal guides so we are now heading back to the bus again to do a different part of the tour

 

The city gates with the amazing flower market stalls

 

McD’s get everywhere but we didn’t stop at this one for a change!!

 

 City gate, very pretty!

Beautiful city gates

 

Absolutely stunning flower market stalls

 

One of my favourite flowers Gerberas and amazing vibrant colours too for 1 euro each, bargain!

 

 

And one of my other favourite flowers are roses, stunning the amount they had of nearly every colour!

 

 

Looking back to the city gates and the spires we had just seen, beautiful

 

A needle monument to something I just can’t remember what, sorry!!

 

 

Pirita Convent Ruins shame the trees are in the way but it was beautiful what we could see from the bus

 

The TV Tower

 

Something we have never seen before a graveyard in a forest but what a lovely idea.  We were now travelling on the road that used to be part of the Motorcycling road racing track that one of the famous TT riders Joey Dunlop died on and then they stopped the road racing unlike the Isle of Man.

Across the river

 

Across the beach and there is our ship Legend of the Seas

Methodist church

 

View back over the old town from the cruise ship terminal

 

 

 

 

The needle and TV Tower from the cruise ship terminal

 

Probably a better picture of the Songs Festival Ground from here than on the bus earlier on!!

 

Like the colour of this boat and it looks like it has a pair of shades on and a happy smile :o))

 

Now Amy has started a competition with the waiters!!  Iputu made Amy a fighter jet and then Ganess made her a boat with paper and a napkin!  So they both asked for a piece of origami back so Amy made a jet plane for Ganess and a concorde for Iputu!!

 

 

A giraffe when we got back to our room!

 

Sticker complete

Our clock has gone forward an hour last night and tonight again!  EXCITING day tomorrow as we are in St Petersburg, WOW!!  We have booked a long bus tour as you need a visa even to visit for the day but you automatically get one if you have an organised tour planned hence the reason we arranged a tour for this port of call!  Night night everyone we have an early start and a long day ahead of us!! XXX