Ballin' in Tallinn

July 7th & 8th, 2016

We arrived in Tallinn by ferry fairly late in the day and it was just beginning to rain a little. We went to grab dinner and decided that we needed burgers again. We aren’t sure what it is about Scandinavia but there burger restaurants are rated very highly and every time we see that pop up in reviews we begin to crave them. We went to the Estonian Burger Factory and enjoyed some BBQ burgers and cheese balls with beer. The beer everywhere has been very good, even for there most basic beers are delicious! We are also noticing that the prices here are incredible cheap! So far, this seems like our most reasonable country in terms of cost!

Next we made wandered downtown and strolled the streets a bit. We instantly noticed how many hills there and how many winding streets and alleys we could get lost down. The streets were nearly empty and it was a great to take in the city with barely any other people there. As we walked the rain started to pick up and we decided to call it a night and hope the weather cooperated better the next day.

The next morning, we made our way back to the old town center and first headed to Kiek in de Kok, which literarily translates to “Peek in the Kitchen” since soldiers said they could see into the kitchens of the homes while in the cannon tower. The museum in the tower was very well done and gave us a nice overview of the history of Estonia. This was very helpful as neither of s knew anything about the country before coming here! After the museum we took a tour of the bastion tunnels. It was very cold down there and damp, but very much worth it!.

We learned about how the tunnels have been used over time, including as store rooms and air-raid shelters. It was also interesting to see pictures of the tunnels before it was repaired to be part of the museum when it was filled with water and served as shelter for many homeless people. If we had never come here, we would had been oblivious to the very long history of Tallinn and it's previous settlements.

Then, we found lunch at Rataskaevu 16, which is both the address and name of the place. It was the best meal we have had yet! Everyone was so kind and willing to share information with us on the building it is located in. The building was from the 14th century and they could speak about so many random elements of how it was used. We were sitting in a small alcove, which apparently used to be the balcony.

As the food started to come out, we knew the meal was off to a good start when we tried the homemade pumpkin seed bread and local butter which is so creamy. Next we had a pumpkin soup and salted salmon, which also had salmon eggs. Neither of us had ever tried this and enjoyed it so much. Anna ordered a whitefish with local vegetables and Chuck ordered the elk roast. The waiter then told us that he just found out recently, from another American, that we have two different animals (elk and moose) but there they are considered the same. So he actually ended up eating moose roast. Either way, it was delicious! Since we had enjoyed everything so much already we knew we had to order dessert, so when the waiter said the chocolate cake was the best in the town we knew that’s what we would order. It was easily the best molten cake we have ever had anywhere. It came with lime ice cream and was not too sweet. Such an incredible lunch and such a good price! We are of course savoring the price while we can before we move onto the more pricey countries. (Was that too much about food...?)

We spent the rest of the afternoon just wandering the city and turning down random streets. Anna came across a bowl carved out of, what looked to be, a tree limb stump. The owner of the shop made all of the items which made it worth our purchase.  We enjoyed the small shops and the main square. People selling items in the square were all dressed the part of a medieval town and they were all selling items they made, very cool! Then, we headed to the cruise ship that we would be taking overnight to Stockholm.

Neither of us have ever had a desire to take a cruise before and it was an interesting experience. Overall it wasn’t horrible, although we could feel quite a bit of movement. Also, we realized a lot of people truly enjoy the tax-free shops on board and we were shocked with how much alcohol was being loaded off the ship as we arrived in Stockholm.

We aren’t sure if a cruise is something we want to do again anytime soon, but it was nice to wake up in the morning in the archipelago and start the day in Stockholm!