Day 7 - Tallin, Estonia

Today we arrived in Tallin, Estonia. Estonia was an independent country, then taken over by the soviet union, then finally it gained it's independence again. This is a very interesting city. It is within walking distance of the ship ports. Once you walk to the city you see the old city fortification wall. The city was also split in the upper (Damstadt) and lower (Reval) towns. The lower town was the where the normal people lived. The upper town was where the nobles lived. There were 8 Gates around the city originally, now there are about 4. As I walked around the city it was beautiful and many places were trying to restore the original medieval look to the facades. May through Sept is the best time to visit. Today was cold and rainy. I visited a couple of really nice hotels, one was in the heart of the old city and fully restored. It was like a small B&B. This town was also the place where Peter The Great from Russia came over with his wife Katherine to build a Palace for their summer home. Now it is a museum. We stopped by a bar called “Hell Hunt”. For us as Americans we read it as we see it. It actually says: Hell=Gentle, Hunt=Wolf… Gentle Wolf. It was originally built in 1933. There were several beautiful churches. One on Toompea Hill was a Lutheran Church where inside there are over 107 Epitaph Coat of Arms from the 17th century. These are wood carvings done in a relief. They stand for all the people buried in the church. It was absolutely amazing. They were beautiful. The Prime Minister here is young about 33 years old, so he takes risks. He models the government against the Queen of England. Some of the things she or the UK say in theory, he puts into action. By doing this, they have advanced significantly. The Salt Trade made many people rich. Tourism and SKYPE are the key items in Tallin. Many other known computer technologies have come from here as well.
After walking all day in the cold and rain we went back to the ship and warmed up with a nice lunch then a nap. We took off about 4:30pm and are now on our way to St. Petersburg, Russia. I look forward to my next blog. I’m sure this will be very interesting.