After arriving on a boat from Finland, I ended up staying in Estonia longer than I had planned. It is truly a special place. The people are nice, it is clean, safe, relatively affordable, and my couch-surfing hosts Kadri and Andre insisted I stay in Tallinn (the capital) with them as long as I wanted. It was hard to want to leave.
Old Town Tallinn
We explored the old town, which is Tallinn's main tourist attraction (and for good reason). It is a fairy-tail like town that has existed since the 13th century and is very well preserved. Interestingly, the town square is said to have been the first place to have displayed a proper Christmas tree (though Latvia disputes this).
Old Town
One could easily wander throughout the old town all day. To this day it is likely the most charming medieval city center I have ever been to.
charming, no?
Kadri and Andre are very keen on adventure-seeking and were really excited to show me remnants of the fact that Estonia was occupied by Russia for 51 years. They took me to a Russian squatter's village that the Estonian government had recently cleared out. When Russia left Estonia is 1991, they left behind a huge Russian population in its former territories. In Estonia in particular, these Russians are today a rather marginalized and impoverished population compared to the ethnic Estonians.
In several places they erected shanty towns compete with restaurants and hotels.
this was the shanty town hotel
Downtown Tallinn, by contrast, is extremely modern. For example, my host Andre took me to his office and this was the view:
doesn't get much more modern
I guess this sort of futuristic architecture shouldn't be surprising in a country where Skype was invented and where the government protects internet access as a human right.
Eventually I figured it was time to see more of the country, so I spent one last day visiting the Russian Orthodox church and strolling around by myself. The next day Kadri drove me to the edge of the city and dropped me off on the side of the highway which bisects the small country.
orthodox church
goodbye Tallinn!