Day 14 - 25 August - Tallinn - day 10 of the cruise

The clocks were set back an hour last night, so we got a really good rest at last. We woke up to see that the forecast for Tallinn was rain, which isn't really promising for a walking tour of a truly ancient city with cobbled streets and steep hills. However, we went anyway, and it wasn't too bad - although I had both an umbrella and a raincoat I didn't use either, although I will admit to putting on my cardigan to soak up some of the rain (which really wasn't much more than mist).

This was back to the sort of tour we did in Stockholm - 40-odd people first on a bus then on foot, going where we're told.  However, again, it was actually not too bad a way to visit the city for the first time.  I think if we ever do another Baltic cruise (ie, if we win the Lotto) we won't do so many ship's tours as there are quite a few cities like Helsinki, Tallin and Stockholm where you can easily get around by yourself, especially once you've been there once.  

Anyway, our guide was called Maia and she did an excellent job - she talked about the history of Tallin and Estonia, and showed us many of the lovely old buildings and explained their history, and she also has an excellent sense of humour. I was amazed in the Upper Town where the tour started that the old buildings we were looking at are actually current government buildings - for example the parliament house and the prime minister's office, with no protective structures and no obvious guards.  Even at home there would be more obvious security than here.

After we toured the Upper Town - which is where the nobles used to live - then we went to the Lower Town where everyone else lived.  It's all one city now of course, but they didn't always get along; they weren't always even acknowledged to be parts of the same town.  There are walls and gates between the two, which used to be shut off every night.  At least part of the problem was that a person could get to be an official citizen of Tallinn by living in the city for a year and a day.  This meant that if a serf managed to escape from one of the noble's estates, and hide in the city - and obviously it would be the lower part - for a year and a day, they became a free citizen.  This did not please the nobles!

As I said, the tour was quite interesting although it was only for 3 1/2 hours in the morning.  We thought the town was getting quite crowded with tourists by the time the tour was over, but apparently this was a quiet day!  The Celebrity Eclipse was the only big ship in port, with about 2850 passengers, but on the 21st of August for example there were three big ships with over 7800 passengers.  Plus of course there are always smaller cruise ships plus people arriving via ferry from St Petersburg and Helsinki. 

If the weather had been better we would have stayed at the end of the tour - it's only about a 20 minute walk back to the ship - but we decided to come back and yet again have had a "cruise afternoon" nap.  I'm wrting this at about 3pm and we would still have time to go for a walk, but the weather has closed in again.

A few interesting things we learned today:

• There is a TV tower in Tallinn with a viewing platform, quite similar to the Telstra Tower in Canberra actually.  On a really clear day, you can see Helsinki
• Back in the 1980s there was one ferry between Tallinn and Helsinki each 2 weeks.  Now there are multiple arrivals and departures every day - the Finns apparently love to come to Estonia for cheap alcohol among other things!
• Finnish and Estonian are very similar languages, but confusingly different as well.  There are apparently 2,000 words which are spelled and pronounced the same in both languages but which have completely different meanings, some of them quite funny - for example, the word for government in Finnish mean fungus in Estonian.
• Estonia had a negative birth rate by the turn of the century and so implemented a Paid Parental Leave scheme which bluntly makes Tony Abbott's look mean. Apparently between them, mum and dad can have 1.5 years of paid parental leave, at their previous salary.  And, a mother is guaranteed to be able to return to her job up to three years after the birth. 
• Tallinn has about 400,000 people, so not much bigger than Canberra.  However, they have a singing festival every 5 years and there is a permanent stage set up for it - this stage can have 30,000 people performing on it at once!

This is the Estonian parliament house- as you can see, we were allowed to just stand around outside and there's no sign of guards.

Our guide Maia standing outside the Peppersack restaurant - the building dates from medieval times.  Peppersack was slang for a rich person

Pipe organ inside St Mary's Church - the organ dates from 1914 but the church is from the 13th century.  It also contains many elaborately carved coats of arms of local noble families. 

This is the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral - a Russian Orthodox Church. Photography inside is not permitted, nor is talking.  But, they have a glorious choir who sings there almost continuously during the day.