Talinn is many things and the old city is a reminder that a healthy diet of milk and preservatives plus good tall stock (thanks Mom & Dad) created people who are just a touch taller than those who built the Old City of Talinn. I would be exagerating, something I rarely do, if I said it was Lilliputian but there were many stores that it would have been much easier to enter if I was say 5'1" instead of 6'4" - more on that later.
Anttii arranged a package deal that included the ferry ride and hotel for the night. The Sokos Hotel is located on the edge of the Old City and was very convenient. Six years ago the same park and location seemed dusty with prospects and the impact from Communism was more evident - the big news was the opening of a tall bank! With that said, the past six years have been very good to Estonia. There is a new harbor, dozens of ships arriving daily and a sense of pride in restoring the city back to pristine condition with shops, restaurants, activities, etc. We checked into our 3 star hotel, got upgraded to a business room, dropped our bags and did a little exploring.
The Old Town
Dating back to the 13th entury, the old section of Talinns is a maze of winding cobblestoned streets, hidden courtyards and spired churches that were somehow maintained throughout the past hundred or so years. There are the medieveal wall ramparts and 20 towers that surround the town and are at times included as part of the buildings. It is nearly impossible to walk a 100 yards without a peak down a small alley that might hold charming little shops, a cloistered patio or another little link to a parallel street. The wall might be the back of a house or the stall of a wool merchant. Again, I was impressed six years ago, but the Estonians seem to have taken extra care in restoring the buildings, painting, new roofs, new and welcoming storefronts and without tacky neon. We hiked through the town square and up to the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral- the landmark Russian Orthodox Cathedral named after the duke in the 13th century. The town seems to be a "cat" city - the pottery, the linen, the tourist postcards, have cats on them.
During our second day in Talinn we started tasting our way around town - chocolate shops and pastries. We also climbed to the top of the Niguliste Church tower which is now a museum. For 25 kroner each, we discovered how out of shape we are. The stairs (250+) were a set of two spiral staircases where the steps might have been 6" wide at the ends. The stairwell was so narrow that when I tried to take a picture of Anttii and Frank behind me, I could barely keep my belly out of the view ... hmm, ok, so the problem might be a combination of issues! Anyway, we huffed all the way to the top and enjoyed the grand views of the city and the harbor. Our day ended with a "authentic" Estonian meal at the Kuldse Notsu Kortts - a little restaurant that served a lot of piggy in a lot of different forms.
We helped the economy by purchasing several items from little shops throughout the city. Several of the shops were in the lowere sections of the city and it really felt like going down into a hobbit hole. I had to not only duck but crouch to enter several of the shops.
Troika
Antti recommended that we try a Russian restaurant for dinner our first night. Troika is one of those places that you would walk if you didn't know it was there. Off the main plaza in the city center, you walk down a hall and down a narrow stairway into the cellar. Roman, our waiter, was quite skilled at serving ice-cold vodka from four feet about the glasses on the table. The food was delicious and aside from the ten minutes when the fire alarm rang - was an absolute delight. We enjoyed, blini, meat soup, cucumbers with honey, steak, beef stroganoff and chicken Kiev. I can only hope that the food in St. Petersburg is on par and that the service (i.e. the servers) are as attractive.
Out on the Town
There are two family establishments in the old town - X Bar and Angel. Angel has a nightclub downstairs on Friday and Saturdays which we missed since we were there on Sunday. Upstairs, it was a pleasant surprise - especially in contrast to the X Bar next door (which is why I mention it first). Angel is like an angel - open, light and airy; a combination of a restaurant and lounge. The bathroom stalls were labeled "hetero" and "homo" which I found most amusing. The music wasn't obtrusive and after a couple of drinks we called it an evening.
X Bar - Hmm. I'm not sure how to describe the place. To call it the "gay" bar of every town gives it too much credit but if you walked in you would immediately recognize it as such. First, it was dark and little of no class; one of those places where touches of tacky neon were installed years ago and never taken down. The obligatory Tom of Finland poster hung one wall plus a few strings of Christmas lights. The bar tender was a grumpy lesbian with the fake red hair that kind of glowed in the black light. Scattered throughout the bar was a collection of people that made for the most interesting of floor shows.
First, it was Fandango night (i.e. a gathering of three or more lesbians in one location). They were the young sporty lesbians with the short cropped hair (#5) and leather apparel, loud but not obnoxiously so, they were having a good time and on occasion would trip past to have a dance on the metallic dancefloor (very leatherbar circa 1983). Passed out on the table was the form of a person (male or female) who was oblvious to all of the goings on with the girls. The other patrons in the room included a guy who would rush to the bathroom, light a cigarette, fall asleep and then repeat. Behind me was a couple of men, one of whom decided that it was beauty night and filed his nails for 45 minutes - he was sporting a 80's John Cusak mimi-mullet with a few blond highlights.
Time passed and the girls left and a second wave of people came in and sat down at the couch. Two guys looked liked that worked with the Russian Mafia on weekends and the person who was passed out turned out to be a guy. He woke up and was offered a drink from the new group of people. THEN a youngster comes in and his daddy who was sporting an inappropriate blonde hairdo comes in and is dancing about in white pants and a blue striped shirt (very Village People). We are just observing the parade of people and enjoying the eclectic mix of music - where else can you hear the opening of the Sydney Olympic song? There were bears, tweaks, goths, sporty lesbians, heavy tool-carrying lesbians, and the only thing missing seemed to be the drag queen! Not that we were not having a good time - we decided to check out Angel and it seemed a bit like heaven.
Talinn was a great two-day experience and will continue to become even more of a tourist's dream. I cannot rave enough about it and highly recommend it to anyone in the neighborhood. On the wall in the Estonian restaurant was the following saying, "A mouse never ran into a sleeping cat's mouth."
