Europe 2019: Tallinn, Estonia

Europe 2019

Tallinn, Estonia

Our next stop was Tallinn, Estonia. I was very excited to check it out because I'd never been further up the Baltic than Poland, and it just seemed like a really cool place to visit.

We had decided to forego any type of excursion and just explore on our own. Tallinn has a great "Old Town" and it's close to where the cruise ships dock. One small side note:  We were the only ship in port pretty much everywhere we went. That was by design on my part. Most of the lines have left the Baltic by late September, but the Getaway was still running. I booked it thinking it would be a great way to avoid crowds but understanding that we were playing a dangerous game with the weather. We got lucky and hit a meteorological home run! Tallinn would be one of those ports that would be completely different if there were four or five ships in town.

When we got off the ship to walk to town they had these Hop On Hop Off buses - I call them Ho Ho Buses - selling tickets if you wanted to go anywhere. I thought it was a little far to walk (it wasn't) so we hopped on and took a full loop around the area until we got to the top of Old Town. 
  

It was a waste of money as there really isn't much to see outside of Old Town and we never got back on the buses again.

Tallinn is a charming, medieval type city. It's pretty and kind of fun to walk around. What I was surprised about the most though was how incredibly touristy it is.

  
There are souvenir shops everywhere, and I mean everywhere! The entire town seems to be dependent on tourism. In some places this can seem kind of tacky, but it sort of worked here for some reason.

We certainly did our part to support the local economy. The shops were nice and so were the people generally.

Basically, we just had a relaxed day walking around doing normal stuff. We popped into some basement place for a snack. 

We checked out all of the sights, but there really aren't any big time things to see here. They have the usual Euro collection of spectacular churches and squares. I wouldn't say you'd be missing anything if you didn't go inside.

This was another good stop for Samantha. We could go at our own pace and there was plenty of room for her to run around and explore.

I think I'm mimicking her dancing here.

When it was time for lunch we picked a place in Town Hall Square and sat down outside. It was fun and the food was pretty good.

Tour groups! There were still a few even with just us in town. If we saw the herd coming we just headed down another street.

Breakin' the lawwwww! I'm not sure what I wasn't supposed to do here, but I'm trying to do it.

This guy would make you stamped metal things on the spot. We decided to get Samantha a coin and he let me do the striking. 

We really enjoyed Tallinn. It's a neat place and it was a relaxing day after the previous day's grind in Berlin. I'm not sure you'd ever go here directly for any reason, but it makes for an excellent cruise stop.

Branelle had time to take the obligatory picture of me taking a picture.

Nel is still amused to no end when people ask me to take pictures of them. Evidence:

My Wife Is Easily Amused

Another nice thing about Tallinn as a cruise stop is that it's a neat place to get on and off the boat. It's relaxed and spacious and there are some good photo ops. They even have some very nice souvenir shops that you walk through on and off the ship, just in case you forgot to get something at one of the 500 shops in town.