Today we took a day trip to Tallinn, Estonia, on the M/S Finlandia ferry which is part of the Eckerö Line (blue and white boat in the photo on the right). It takes a little over 2-hours each way and we took the 9 am ferry over and the 6:30 pm one back so we had about 7 hours in town. We paid for our own private cabin with bathroom, but it was still super cheap. 92 EUR round trip.
Tallinn has a beautiful, old, medieval city center, dating back to the 13th century. Tallinn and Estonia have a long and complex history of being under control of some other nation and their people kept as serfs, dating back to when the Danes invaded in 1219. Since then, it has been under control of Germany (in its various states), Sweden and Russia. It has only been a free, independent state for two brief periods of time - 1918 to 1940 and 1991 to the present day. That is just a bit over 50 years. Amazing when you think about it.
Tallinn still has a bit left of the wall that once protected the town and you can see one of the towers in the picture to the right. The building attached to the tower is their parliament building. That is the Estonian flag flying on the tower with stripes of Blue, Black and White.
The Russians have only been gone for a little more than thirty years so as you can imagine, there is still quite a bit of Russian influence on the town. That includes this ornate Russian Orthodox church right across from Parliament. Estonia is one of the least religious countries in the world with 65% of the nation unaffiliated with a church. The remaining is roughly split between Lutheranism and the Orthodox church.
The Russian influence extends to the restaurants in town, and we had lunch at Troika, which serves Russian food including bear. Nothing so adventurous for us. We stuck with dumplings that were like perogies.
Town square with City Hall in the background to the left of me. At the tour end, the guide told the story of Old Thomas (Estonian: Vana Toomas). As a young peasant boy, Tom won the prize in the archery contest against the German nobility which angered them, but before they could do him harm, the mayor of the town stepped in and said that although he couldn't give Tom a prize, he did offer him the job of town watchman which he kept for many years until he was old. As a symbol of the story, they have a weathervane on top of City Hall with his image. As a tribute to this story, I had a Vana Toomas ice cream before we got on the boat!
No comments:
Post a Comment