Monday, July 9, 2018- Tallinn, Estonia

Monday, July 9, 2018- Tallinn, Estonia

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We had breakfast as the ship was approaching Tallinn Harbor in Estonia.  The Tallinn TV Tower was easily visible in the distance.  There were a lot of cruise ships heading into Tallinn.  Ours was one of the first.  A small Fred Olsen Cruise Lines ship backed into the slip adjacent to us as we finished breakfast, and two large German Aida cruise ships also ended up docking this morning.  We booked a Princess Excursion with a Coastal Drive and Lighthouse tour.  It is clearly rated “Strenuous” and “Not recommended for wheel chairs because of irregular cobblestone surfaces”, and yet, one man in a wheel chair and two elderly ladies dependent on canes struggled into the bus.  Fortunately, there were only a total of 19 people on this excursion.  We climbed into a 46 passenger bus and had plenty of room to spread out.  

Our guide, Liina, was an excellent guide with easy to understand conversational English, a good sense of humor and deep fund of local knowledge.  Our tour started with a drive through the city of Tallinn and into the countryside.  We passed through some newer suburbs that looked very nice, as well as some Soviet Era suburbs with their clunky and ugly concrete Soviet architecture.  We drove through extensive pine woods and fields as we got further from the city.  They still have bears and wolves in the woods of Estonia, as well as moose, deer and all manner of other woodland creatures.  

We drove past an old Soviet submarine base as Liina explained how happy the Estonians were to throw off the chains of Soviet oppression with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and restoration of the Estonian republic in 1991.  They had always viewed the association with the USSR as an occupation, rather than union.  After the fall of the USSR, locals rounded up all the statues of Lenin and Stalin, and unceremoniously dumped them in a field behind a WWII memorial built to commemorate those who had given their lives in the fight against the Nazis in WWII.  

We learned that the Estonians joined NATO, and will be sending troops to NATO exercises, but there is some debate as to which of their two tanks to send to the exercises.  Estonia is the smallest of the Northern European former eastern block countries with fewer than 1.4 million population.  More than 2/3rds of that population live in Tallinn.  Prior to Soviet occupation, many people lived in the country side farming, but collectivization of farms during the Soviet era essentially destroyed the agricultural industry, making Estonia nearly entirely dependent on imports for most goods and supplies.  They do have some shale oil near their border with Russia, and are developing wind and other renewable resources, but a gallon of gasoline costs nearly $5.80 per gallon.  They are now actively courting China, hoping to become a major shipping hub with access to the rest of Europe through Tallinn and other Baltic ports.  We also learned that Skype originated in Estonia, and even after its acquisition by Microsoft, the tech industry still has a major footprint in Estonia.

We reached the coast and our first of two light houses.  This one was a wooden structure that is still operational.  There are a pair of automated LED beacons on the seaward face.  We got to meet the lighthouse keeper who spoke about privatization of the properties around the lighthouse after the Soviets left.  While she was talking, it was hard not to get distracted by a robot lawn mower that was doing its thing in the lawn behind her and around the lighthouse keepers cute home.  It was like a larger sized Roomba robot.  It was surprisingly quiet, and probably used line trimmer line instead of a real lawn mower blade to do its thing.  We did walk up the narrow wooden steps to the top of this 3-4 story structure, but you had to watch your head because there were many low clearance beams that could easily knock you out.  The wooden steps were quite worn.  It’s hard to believe something like this hasn’t burned down.  The lighthouse keeper provided us with tea and espresso, as well as a bathroom to use.  

Janet and I broke into our sandwiches and cookies we smuggled off the ship for lunch on the bus, and that worked out well as we drove up the coast to our second and last light house.  This one was a brick and concrete tower 170’ high with 280 steps to the top.  We did manage to climb to the top, where there was a sweeping view of the Baltic Sea with a wind turbine farm off to one side.  The waters below were surprisingly clear as you could see rocks and seaweed on the seabed through the light greenish water that looked like the local green amber.  

On our drive back into Tallinn, we drove through some old farm fields and saw several stork’s nests, which were huge and situated atop telephone poles.  We could see the storks standing on top of their nests from quite a distance.  

Our last stop was Tallinn’s medieval town center.  Liina gave us a guided walking tour of city wall, castle base, and old town center.  From there, we had some free time to wander around the city, and then had a choice to either return to the bus, or return to the ship on our own. Since the ship was only a 20-30 minute walk from the center of the old town, we opted to wander the streets longer on our own and then back to the ship by foot.  With so many cruise ships in town, it was easy to find our way back to the ship simply by following the crowds.  The Aida cruise ship had a very large party of people on bicycles branded with the AIDA logo.  They must carry them on the ship for excursions.  These were all young and fit looking Germans.  

We got back to the ship in time for the 3PM afternoon trivia game.  We ended playing with John from Canberra (his parents were both still off on an excursion) and a Mary from Toronto and Cassie from Sydney.  We managed to win with only 14/20.  Fortunately, both Mary and Cassie knew where the Mau Mau uprising occurred, because we had no idea it was in Kenya.  But we still managed to choke on a question because none of us could come up with Gwenyth Paltrow’s name, even though we all knew who she was.  Funny how that happens.

We had afternoon tea to revive ourselves and watched the ship sail away over a glass of wine.  We got to hear the ship play the theme to “The Love Boat” with its horns to announce our pulling away from the dock.  That was pretty cool.  

We had an early dinner and then saw the Showtime feature of Beatlemania, a tribute band that tried to put on a high energy show, but they seemed to be asking the audience to do all of the singing, and as a tribute and, they were only so-so.  

Of course, we had to follow that with the evening music trivia on Beatles music.  We could have used Cathy from our South America Cruise who was a total Beatles savant.  We managed 14/20, while the winners got 19/20.  

We have to get off to an early start tomorrow because we arrive in St. Petersburg, and we have been promised maximal hassle by the Russian government to clear customs and immigration, despite President Trump’s apparent chumminess with Putin.