Europe 2017: Day #25 Once Upon a Time in Krakow

Sunday, 27 August 2017

Sunday was always going to be an easy-going day for us in Krakow.  We had nothing specifically booked or planned and just wanted to take it a bit easily.

Our main stop of the morning was at the Underground Museum in the Main Square.  This is located under the Cloth Market (see photo) and extends for some distance under the square itself.  About ten years ago, in the mid 2000s, the city basically took the top of the square to expose the archeological ruins hidden beneath.  Once that was done and the digging was complete they put in a number of supports and put the square back on top.  This provided them with the means to turn the underground area into a massive museum detailing the full history (from the 900s) of Krakow and the surrounding areas.

Model of Krakow Old Town in Underground Museum

It has resulted in one of the best museums of its type that I've ever seen.  Robyn and I spent two hours there and could have stayed all day if we hadn't got hungry and if we weren't looking forward to our next stop, Schindler's Factory.

Situated on the southern outskirts of the Krakow Old Town Oscar Schindler's Enamel Factory is now a major Krakow museum dedicated to recording the history of Krakow during the Second World War.  Needless to say it is rather harrowing, though I doubt to the level of the concentration camps in the countryside - sites we decided long ago not to visit.

The outside of Schindler's Factory

Oddly enough, there appeared to be only one room of the museum dedicated to Schindler, along with a gallery of photographs of those he saved and an art installation listing all the names.

Nevertheless, the museum was an excellent representation of its subject matter, even if it was majorly depressing.

In one of those quirks of travel, as we were leaving the museum and contemplating our return home, we ran into the young Melbourne couple (Evan and Jacinta) who had shared the bus with us from Riga to Vilnius about a week before. We shared an Uber back into town with them, had a beer and swapped stories before they had to head off for a dinner appointment. 

It had been a very interesting and surprising day in many ways.

Europe 2017: Day #24 Warsaw to Krakow by Train

Saturday, 26 August 2017

In our past trips to Europe I've always enjoyed travelling by train rather by any other form of transport.  This time we had some trouble figuring out how to do that and ran into so many difficulties we gave up, hence the bus tours described in previous entries.  The problem with the Baltic states is that they had they train networks "modernised" under the Soviets and all ended up running on the broad gauge.

Estonia, as it does, likes to get ahead of the game so after gaining independence in 1991 it began a process of converting all its broad gauge lines to standard gauge, as used in the rest of western Europe. However , in order to connect with the rest of Europe (with Poland being the eastern-most part at that time) it had to rely on both Latvia and Lithuania converting as well. As far as I could gather the haven't done that as yet.  So any rail trip between Tallinn and Riga requires a change at the border from one train to another.  That might appear to be a simple matter, but it does require the two countries to align their train schedules. And as you might guess, they haven't. 

Vilnius to Warsaw by train is possible if you are willing to transit via Belarus (along with paying for the visa) and then to sit in Bialystok in Poland for 5 hours to make the right connections.   Again no.

There is a great plan being discussed within the Baltic States to build a fast train line that connections Tallinn to Riga to Vilnius to Warsaw but it probably has as much chance of getting up as does the fast-train plan in Australia. Lots of talk, no action.

So with all that taken into account our best chance of  train journey this time round was the Warsaw to Krakow line.  So we took it and a good thing it was. But, frankly, uneventful. Which is exactly the way train travel should be.

Robyn stitches

Our apartment in Krakow looked, from the street, very uninviting.  The interior was a very different matter entirely.  And the location was to die for - being only about 20 metres from the main Krakow Square, and what a lively beauty that is.

We had a walking tour booked for 2pm so we wandered off a for a bite and to orient ourselves as to the meeting place.

The tour gave us a good overview of the Krakow Old Town and highlighted a number of places we wanted to see more of over the coming days.

Europe 2017: Day #23 Gardens and Museums

Friday, 25 August 2017

For a short while during the morning I thought this day was going to be one where we kept running into Queenslanders: we met two couples over breakfast who were staying in our hotel (from Toowoomba) and then another couple later on the bus (from Brisbane).

We had already decided that we hadn't allocated enough time in Warsaw (we hadn't really known what to expect) and so settled for the bus on this day with a few stops here and there. We made the first stop with about 10 minutes to spare so Robyn was able to make her way to her favourite spot: top deck up the front. Just as we sat down we realised the couple sitting in the other front top seats were Australian. Conversation ensued and we learned they were from Brisbane with the husband coming to Poland for the first time to track his father's history. The father had been a member of the Polish Parachute unit attached to the RAF during the war but had never spoken about his war-time or early life experiences to his son who was now in Poland to see what he could find out. Hope it worked for him.

The gardens at Lazierki Park were our first stop and we spent a very pleasant hour and a half wandering around the greenery.  This came as a relief from the hard stone and concrete that we had been dealing with for the past few weeks.  The contrast was quite refreshing even if we did cover a fair bit of distance while there.

A bit of a rush at the end got us back to the bus on time, only for us to meet the Brisbane couple again. They had stayed on the bus when we got off earlier and were now on their second time round the loop. We got the impression they were still getting over the long flight and just wanted to see and watch the world go by. Seemed fair.

Next stop lunch and the Warsaw Uprising Museum. This was an excellent museum though rather crowded by the time we got there.  We gave ourselves a bit over an hour; it really needed longer.

We took the bus route around to the end and then changed over to the alternate - Hop On/Hop Off buses usually run two routes in big cities.  We got to see over the other side of the river even though this wasn't on the regular schedule.  Seems the traffic was rather heavy in the centre of Warsaw on a late Friday afternoon and he had to detour to get back on schedule. Sometimes things just fall into place.

Europe 2017: Day #22 A Warm Day in Warsaw

Thursday, 24 August 217

After a brief shower overnight the day started bright and clear; a perfect blue sky.  And you could tell it was starting to heat up. Not furnace hot but certainly warmer than we had been experiencing up to that point.

Our aim for the day was to get to an early morning free walking tour of the Old Town and then take things as they came. We had no major plans past lunch time.

I've come to the conclusion that it is never wise to rely on the estimates of walking times given by hotel staff.  For some reason they always seem to under-estimate the time it takes to get anywhere.  We wanted to get to the tourist information office in the Old Town main square and were informed that it was only 10 minutes or so from our hotel.  So we set off in the direction indicated and 45 minutes or so later we reached our destination.  Maybe he thought we meant by car. Maybe he thought we meant to the main street. Maybe I'm just making excuses for him.

In any event it was a good walk; flat, smooth footpath, and an excellent street to wander along. The tourist info office wasn't a lot of help as we already had most of the information we wanted so we sat and waited and picked up the walking tour at the right spot at the right time.

Warsaw Old Town main square

What we were soon to learn was that the Warsaw Old Town was anything but. The city had been pretty much leveled during the Second World War so everything we saw on the walking tour was a reconstruction. A good one, but a reconstruction nonetheless.

The tour gave us a good overview of Polish history, which basically consists of one military conflict after another; one foreign takeover of the country followed by their overthrow, followed by...and so on and so forth. It was all good stuff, being the facts of history hundreds of years ago.  Until we hit the 20th century, and then things got ugly, in a big way.

Our tour guide didn't gloss over the Jewish extermination in Warsaw and neither did he dwell on it overly.  Still it's hard to avoid when you walk over evidence of the Warsaw ghetto all through the Old Town as the wall is marked on the street.

Our post-lunch plans went awry when I misinterpreted the name Copernicus Science Center as being a museum.  After a very long walk we found it to be an interactive science showpiece rather like ScienceWorks in Melbourne, and full - they had too many people in the building and had stopped selling tickets.

Tired and weary as the day had been heating up as expected we caught a cab to the central railway station to check out our train departure location a few days in advance and to visit the main tourist centre situated at the base of the Palace of Culture and Science, a "gift" to the Polish people from the USSR in 1955.

Coming to the realisation that Warsaw was a big place, that it was only going to get warmer and that we had a lot of ground to cover, we opted to purchase one day Hop-On/Hop-Off bus passes, get on the next one and just sit for an hour or so.

It proved to be a wise move and we ended our day with a quiet beer, before a change of clothes and then dinner.

Europe 2017: Day #21 On a Road to Somewhere

Wednesday, 23 August 2017

There's not really a lot you can say about an eight and a half hour bus ride other than we experienced it, endured it and got out the other end.

Actually as bus rides go it was pretty good.  The bus was comfortable, included coffee and toilet facilities as well as offering in-trip video entertainment via back-of-seat screens.

Our bus to Warsaw

We were hit by another torrential downpour, traffic jams and extensive road works in the last 50 kilometres into Warsaw so we arrived about 30 minutes late.  The hotel was reasonable, and we had dumplings in a nearby restaurant while talking to another customer who hailed from Adelaide.  We made it back to bed and basically crashed out. 

Welcome to Poland.

Europe 2017: Day #20 Murals, Statues and Frank Zappa

Tuesday, 22 August 2017

The rain had cleared out overnight and left us with a partly cloudy morning, though the forecast was for more rain later in the day. Robyn wanted to check out the Vilnius Bus Station to get our bearings for the trip to Warsaw on the next day, to get some food for the trip and to wander down some streets we hadn't been to as yet.

We had been talking to some Australians at breakfast about the prospect of walking over to the bus station ("Only fifteen minutes, and only four steps in one flight of stairs") but a survey of the trip showed us a number of possible problems, detours onto the road to avoid building sites and uneven surfaces.  Remembering our difficulties with Riga and those cobble stones we decided on a cab.

The Vilnius bus station is functional, not much more need be said.

Instead of wandering down through the Gate of Dawn again we set off around the wall in an anti-clockwise direction, and while the buildings were a bit less than attractive it re-inforced our view that Vilnius is a city slowly dragging itself through a modern renovation.  In ten years you almost won't recognise the place.

We ended up back in the centre of town after a circuitous route which allowed Robyn to buy a shawl of the type she had been eyeing since Tallinn.  Then a look inside the cathedral and time for coffee and a sit, watching the world go by.

The only thing we had planned for the day was the Alternative Walking Tour of Vilnius at 3pm so I persuaded Robyn that food purchases and a rest back at the hotel were in order. She wasn't overly convinced but decided we had made the right choice when rain set in just after we got back to our room.

At three we were outside the Town Hall, with the rain having cleared, among a group of about 12, including Howie and his mother Barbara from New York who had been with us on two bus trips and two other walking tours so far - sometimes you find other people's itineraries very closely aligning with yours for a week or so.

This tour took us outside the walls of the Old Town to the market, with its mural opposite by Italian artist Millo;

the railway station, with its strange statue of James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano, partly hidden by a misplaced stationary train carriage;

the mural of Trump and Putin exchanging dope smoke;

the magnificent mural by two Brazilian artists (including a portrait of their grandfather, an ex-Lithuanian who always wanted to return to this country but never did, except here sitting on the figure's left hand);

and we finished at a bust of Frank Zappa.

And why Frank Zappa is here is a very, very long story indeed.

A truly excellent tour followed by a few beers with Howie and Barbara, a typical dinner of Lithuanian dumplings and then home to pack for the next day.

Europe 2017: Day #19 From Rain to Shine in Vilnius

Monday, 21 August 2017

The rain had been threatening the previous evening and settled in overnight to become a light, but steady drizzle during the morning. We had plans to do the free Walking Tour of the Old Town of Vilnius at 12 noon and also wanted to get a bit of an idea about the town layout prior to that. So after a decent breakfast we wandered around the outside of the city boundaries, partly defined by a city wall, and mostly by roads that circled the Old Town.

A visit to the local market and then entry into the Old Town via the Gate of Dawn and we headed down one of the main streets - cobbled, as usual.

Exterior - Gate of Dawn

Interior - Gate of Dawn

We covered a lot of ground over the next few hours, getting slightly wet as we got an overview of the town centre.  We got back to the Town Hall Square in time for the 12 noon walk and spent the next 3 hours meandering around some of the same streets we'd walked in the morning.  However, by this time the rain had stopped, the sun was pushing aside the clouds and we had a detailed and lively tour guide.

One of the highlights for me was a visit to the self-proclaimed Republic of Uzipis, an artists' enclave just across a small river from the Old Town.

Our tour guide with Uzipis in the background

We finally finished up a wonderfully informative tour at the Cathedral Square, scene of many a Vilnius political rally over the years.
 

Vilnius Cathedral Square

After which some of us retired to the pub for a couple of beers and a good chat.

That night we featured out for a traditional Lithuanian dinner to celebrate my birthday of the previous day.  And by the time to got to bed we were exhausted.

Europe 2017: Day #18 Riga to Vilnius

Sunday, 20 August 2017

Everything seemed fine when we got up in the morning, and it looked like it was going to be a good day on the bus tour from Riga to Vilnius. Breakfast was consumed, bags were packed and we were out of the apartment on the street waiting for the taxi that we had asked the hotel to book for us. And we waited and waited. And it didn't come.

Ten minutes after the allotted time I gave up and headed to the hotel to drop off the keys in the hope I could find a cab. Taxis are hard to find in the Old Town as the streets are narrow and there is nowhere for them to park in a rank. Also we got the impression that cars of any description were actively discouraged from cruising the streets. Luckily a few blocks away I found an empty cab and somehow explained what I wanted to do, but we were cutting things a little fine. We had to get back to the apartment, load the luggage, head back to the hotel to check-out and drop off the keys, and then get around the other side of Old Town in time to catch the tour group at 9am.

The taxi-driver, after initially seeming to not understand what I wanted, then began to get some idea of our urgency and made a few dodgy U-turns and got us to our destination with 2 minutes to spare.  We had decided that Riga really didn't like us that much, though we had been pretty impressed by it overall.

The bus tour we were on to Vilnius was by the same company with whom we'd travelled from Riga, on the same bus, with the same driver, Triin (Estonian, short for Katherine). We were also travelling with three others from the previous trip along with a new tour guide learning the ropes, and two other young Australians in the middle of a seven-month European tour. We did three months back in 1987 and that was enough. Yet more Australians travelling. Frankly we are everywhere.

First stop was the Holocaust memorial just outside Riga at Salaspils, at what was once a concentration camp.  Built by the Soviets after the war it was dedicated to the memory of the members of the Jewish community who lost their lives to the Nazis. Steadfastly ignoring those who lost their lives to the Soviets.

Entrance under a great concrete beam

Figure denoting suffering

Beyond the huge concrete statues was the steady thump of a hart beat playing from somewhere on the grounds. Very emotive.

An hour or so later we were at Rundale Palace, a large baroque palace in the style of the St Petersburg Winter Palace. We had he choice of the inside or the gardens, and chose the interior.  While not finished the refurbishment is continuing and is pretty good.

After lunch the major stop was at the Hill of Crosses in northern Lithuania.  Bulldozed at least four times by the Soviets in the 1980s the local (not not so local) Lithuanians kept on recreating the mass of crosses as a show of peaceful protest.  No one is quite sure of the number of crosses placed here but it is very, very high.

The rain set in on the rest of the trip and we finally made it to Vilnius just before 9pm.  After a short cab ride we checked in without incident and had a late supper of leftover cheese, salami and a slighly sweetish South African chardonnay.

Europe 2017: Day #17 Wandering the Streets

Saturday, 19 August 2017

After the bus tour through the country-side of Latvia from Tallinn we decided our last day in Riga would be sent wandering the streets rather than venturing outside the city.

A late start got even later when we concluded that we would not be able to Skype the kids until late morning our time, late afternoon theirs.  Then it was a gentle loop around the Old Town heading down towards the market again.

Riga market, showing the four hangars

There were a lot more stalls open on Saturday, with lots of small fruit and veg sellers around the outside of the hangars (to the immediate left and behind the buildings in the photo).  There also seemed to be many more meat and cheese sellers inside, and while there didn't appear to be anything out of the ordinary here Robyn and I can always while away an hour or two just wandering around seeing what people buy to cook.

Cheese selection

Smoked fish

Dark bread

We picked up a few bits and piece - some salami and smoked cheese, and some sweet and savoury pastries for breakfast - and headed back towards the center of town for a quiet beer.  Then a rest and later dinner, as we watched the crowds walking through car-free streets having a good time.

Europe 2017: Day #16 Churches and Art Nouveau

Friday, 18 August 2017

After all the emotional stress of yesterday we had ended up with a pretty good studio apartment in Riga, right in the middle of the Old Town. We had hoped for a two-room apartment with washing facilities but given the desperation of the previous day we were thankful for what we got.

Mirrored ceiling

The mirror's on the ceiling, but there was no pink champagne in the fridge.

On checking my email using the apartment wi-fi I discovered the note about the true nature of the check-in, where we had to go and what we had to do. All too late now.

The only thing we had planned for this day was a long, private walking tour through the Old Town and Art Nouveau district of Riga. We had arranged this to be associated with our first accommodation in Riga and we were to be picked up out the front of those apartments.  We figured it was just too hard to change the pick-up place so we trundled off in the morning to the right street and got there about 10 minutes before ten. Only to find that the exterior and ground floor were being renovated.

There was no number on the building, though I did see it sitting on a chair inside, no name on the outside and no indication, as we discovered by asking the builders working there, that to check-in you had to go to the back of the building in the neighbouring street.  If we had arrived there the previous night as expected we would have been completely lost. This tended to take the edge off our previous accommodation frustration, though only a tad.

Frustration started to return, however, when our guide still hadn't turned up after half an hour. Our friendly builders helped us again by phoning the company running the tour and we got their address, which we immediately realised was in the same street as our check-in hotel.  We were starting to think that Riga really didn't want us to visit.

We made our way to the address indicated for the tour company only to find a set of buildings with little or no signage.  So we headed across the street to our hotel and asked for their help.  Five minutes later our tour guide arrived. Seems she had been held up in traffic and tried to contact us on our mobile number - Australian and therefore of no use at all - and then decided to head to her office when she got the call telling her where we were.

Another disaster averted and I saw no advantage in getting angry about any of this.  I was on holiday and determined to make the best of everything that came my way. We headed off and the next three hours were excellent.

Riga Old Town differs from Tallinn in that a lot of it was flattened during the war, so a lot of the buildings are actually quite new, built to replicate what was there originally and built in the past 20-30 years. Some of the buildings which did survive the bombings mostly intact were the many churches scattered throughout the Old Town. Even so there were quite a number of interesting and quirky buildings, with unusual decorations.  This was especially true of the Art Nouveau district just outside the Old Town.  There are just too many to mention and the district is now one of the greatest collections of Art Nouveau architecture anywhere in the world. It is just one building after another down any number of streets.  One of our favourite pieces was the almost spiral staircase at Alberta iela 12.

Spiral staircase, view from below

Our guide Maria ended the tour by leading us to the main Riga market, where we had a meal of Latvian dumplings - rather like ravioli with tomato and sour cream sauce - and a wander around the market stalls before returning to our apartment for an early drink and nibbles before dinner.

Europe 2017: Day #15 Possible Disasters Averted

Thursday, 17 August 2017

The day didn't start well, got a bit better during the day and almost fell completely apart twice more.

We had an 8:15am taxi arranged to take us the relatively short distance from our apartment to the Tourist Information Office in the center of Tallinn Old Town. It wasn't far but we couldn't see our way through dragging our suitcases across cobblestones etc.  The taxi arrived on time but the driver didn't appear too keen on driving us only a short way.  He headed off and before long seemed to be heading away from the Old Town.  We told him this and he snapped at us saying he knew the way.  In the end he did.  The trouble had been that he hadn't told us anything. Both of us were happy to be out of the cab.  This had been the angriest man we had encountered on the trip so far.

We had a 12-hour trip in front of us to Riga which was a bit daunting when we saw the smallish people-mover vans, but they were spacious enough and took all of our baggage without too much trouble.

Two hours later we stopped at Viljandi, mainly for a visit to the toilets, and a walk around the ruins of an old castle and a giant Estonian adult swing. According to one of our guides this is a favourite past-time of young males in various stages of inebriation attempting to impress young females.  And there were enough willing participants for us to sit that one out.

As is usual in any trip involving more than 2 people there were a number of Australian on this trip.  Besides us there was a Sydney woman having a last trip before leaving London for home, and a Melbourne woman doing exactly the same thing.  Odd thing about Clare, the Melbourne woman, was that she had been to the same school; as our daughter (MLC) and her brother had gone to Trinity like our son.  We even knew the streets we each lived in.

By the time we got to lunch we were starting to get extremely worried our Riga apartment. We were offered the use of our driver's phone to ring.  The first call dropped out, the second was answered by someone who didn't speak English but got enough information through to say we should wait for his son to get back.

And then the bad news. Our payment has been disallowed on the credit card for the Riga apartment and booking cancelled.  Which meant we had nowhere to stay that night, no visible way of making another booking and we would be arriving at around 9pm.  Prospects didn't look good.

Our driver told us not to worry as these things had happened before and we'd be able to find something. Then an Italian member of our party offered us the use of his phone to access the internet, saying he had a phone deal that gave him almost unlimited downloads.  Fifteen minutes later we had both a booking and a confirmation. All seemed well at last, thanks to the help of our fellow travellers.

Lunch was huge and we felt rather dozy back in the van.

After a few more stops along the way, including time for a bit of a nature walk to get rid of lunch,

we came to the last stop of the day, a giant bobsleigh track built by the Soviets in the 1980s in Sigulda. If you had asked me prior to getting here if I wanted to miss this stop I would have said "yes".  Afterwards I was very glad I went.

And then it was another 2 hours into Riga, getting us there just before 9pm.

Robyn and I set off through the windy streets crowded with late-night diners towards our designated address, dragging our suitcases over cobbled streets, only to discover on arrival that there was no-one there to book us in. A terse conversation with the sales staff in the adjoining shop informed us that we needed to go to another hotel to check-in and get the key.  They were shutting up so we took a punt and had our bags locked inside while we set off for the other hotel.

By this time we were both exhausted and on edge, but there was little point in snapping at each other so after a very circuitous route we found the designated hotel and completed the sign-in. They then kindly ordered a taxi for us back to the apartment.

It was nearly 10 by the time we got up a flight of stairs into the studio apartment - which can only be described as being decorated in bordello chic style - threw our bags on the floor and headed out for something to eat.

Bed and sleep were welcome guests at the end of a very, very long day.

Europe 2017: Day #14 Tunnels and Shopping

Wednesday, 16 August 2017

After all the walking of the previous couple of days we decided to take it relatively easy on our last day in Tallinn. A bit of final souvenir shopping and a tour of the tunnels under the bastion, were all we had planned.

First up we needed to ensure all of our future bookings were n place.  We hadn't received a final notification that our payment had gone through for our next stop Riga, so we fired off an email requesting confirmation of that one. A couple of other emails to set up a taxi and let people know when we would be arriving and we were done.

The one hour tour under the walls of the Tallinn was pretty impressive, seeing where various generations of the the local population sheltered from wars and authorities in the twentieth century, including escaping Soviet bombings in 1944, and punks fleeing Soviet police in the 1980s.

Then a stroll back to the town square where we found the weekend market (well, the tourist-oriented one anyway) in full swing. This seems to be about the only way the city of Tallinn can get any expenditure out of the great number of cruise ship tourists that flood the town.  These tourists use their own guides, eat and drink on the ships and don't spend much at all in each city.  Yet they clog the place in mass numbers, annoying the locals and the independent travellers, like us, who are happy to spend our cash in the town. I can foresee restrictions coming in the future. We have read and heard that other cities are contemplating it already.

Town Hall Square

Lunch, more souvenir shopping - we seem to spend a lot of time not buying very much, but, the decisions to be made! - more walking, then a final drink in the square, where I tried the local Estonian liqueur, which was very good and tasted a bit like Drambuie.

Then it was home, a light dinner of bits and pieces, and packing for the trip the next day.

Europe 2017: Day #13 In and Out of Old Town, Tallinn

Tuesday, 15 August 2017

Having walked for hours the previous day we decided to take it a little easier by getting up later and riding buses most of the day.

First stop was the tourist bureau to ensure we actually had transport arranged for our Riga to Vilnius leg and then a wander down towards Viru gate again to check out the ladies selling traditional Estonian woolen and felt garments under the Old Town city wall.

Then the Tallinn Hop On Hop Off bus (the uses of such buses is starting to become a theme of this trip) to get us to Kadriorg Palace which houses the Estonian foreign art collection. It was another clear, bright sunny day and we spent an hour or so wandering around the palace and garden.

Front facade of palace

Rear garden

Back on the bus and back into the Old Town for lunch. Then another bus line for an hour or so, during which time I had a nap. 

Dinner approached so we went back to the Beer House that had been recommended to us and demolished a massive roast pork shank.

Pork shank and dark beer

We literally staggered home after this.  If truth be told it really was too big, but we finished it. And fell into bed, early.

Europe 2017: Day #12 Helsinki to Tallinn

Monday, 14 August 2017

An early start, packing nearly finished and we were at the breakfast buffet by 7:45am.  Simon Litten was already in attendance and after I had checked the Australian twitter feeds to be informed that our wonderful Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce had been declared an New Zealand citizen we laughed ourselves stupid each time a new breakfast companion joined us and we told the story all over again.  Our breakfast co-incided with Parliamentary Question Time in Australia so each new wave of tweets brought another batch of BJ jokes.  A good breakfast was had by all which made it easier to leave.

Bags packed and we're ready to roll

After a brief taxi ride we arrived at our ferry terminal for the 2-hour "cruise" to Tallinn.  Everything went so smoothly I didn't even notice we had cast off till I looked out the window and saw the water slowly sliding past.

Our ferry approaches

Robyn had booked us into comfort class", which basically ensured us a better seat and access to nibbles and coffee. So two hours later we docked in Tallinn, Estonia, out second new country of the trip.

Our AirBnB host was waiting outside the apartment when we pulled up in a taxi.  It's an excellent little place (with a few quirks, which we'll get to) set just on the west side of the old town.

We were in a bit of a rush as we needed to get to the other side of Tallinn Old Town to start a walking tour.  As is often the case in such times we took the wrong turn, going left inside of right once we got close to the wall.  Maps are good and I can read them, but they only show everything in two dimensions, so a short distance looks like a short walking time until you realise that the place you think you need to get to is up by that tree.

We made it, just. Two weeks earlier and they would have needed an ambulance for us but our holiday walking has done us good.  If only we had kept going around the wall anti-clockwise we would have made our destination in 10 minutes.  As it was, another 30 frustrating minutes later we got to the Viru Gate in time and made our connection.

The next two hours walking gave us a fantastic overview of the city, how it was organised and a lot of its history.  I had thought we would be in a large group but there was only the two of us and the guide. That meant we were able to go at our own pace - a good thing since our mountain goat impression from earlier in the day - and ask questions whenever we wanted. It also gave us enough time to take pictures of whatever we wanted.

View over the lower part of Old Town with harbour in distance

Small streets

Steep streets

And Russian Orthodox churches

It's a beautiful city, which we were lucky enough to see on a perfect day (blue skies, no wind, 22C).  The cruise boats were in so we had a lot of other tourists to work around but it all seemed to figure itself out.  We stopped at a Beer House for a beer, and then headed home the flat way.  An early dinner at home and early to bed exhausted.