Day 19/20 - Helsinki To Tallinn

I woke this morning in my palace of a hostel to discover my roommate had turned up sometime in the wee hours. He had been out juggling for beer and had been moderately successful. Bar is on a 2 month ramble around europe before he has to go back to Israel and do his military service. As I was leaving, he was attempting hitchhiking north to Jonsuu for a juggling festival.

After wandering round all the ferry terminals in Helsinki (there are a lot of them) I managed to squeeze onto a ferry for Tallinn without a reservation. They get very full, especially at the weekends. These big ferries are enormous floating bars and everyone heads straight for the booze. Just a quick 2 hour blast across the 80km wide Gulf of Finland with St Petersburg to the east.


The old city of Tallinn is a beautiful place (and it it stuffed with very attractive girls too!). Where Finland is all dull and modern, Tallinn is a mix of dazzling shiny new and quirky and old. Think of a mini Prague meets Tokyo and you wont be too far wrong. Booze and food is relatively cheap and it is not a big surprise the Finns and Swedes come here to party.


There are plenty of communist era architectural horrors as well outside the old city. Look at this thing. What were they thinking? And the building beside it looked like it was modelled on a child's lego house.


Wandered home to my tent and saw yet another sunset across the Gulf of Finland. During the summer, the waters are ice-free so there are always ferries out there. Different story in the winter. The sun is still setting more north than west but I guess that will start to change now.

Woke up a bit late and it was pissing rain so decided to be sensible and go for a wander in town instead of wandering the countryside on a bike seeing nothing. Another day here is no problem at all. Pizza for lunch...and then another one for supper. Old habits die hard. I will be good tomorrow and head for Tartu or Riga, depending on the weather.