Tallinn is among the most photogenic cities I’ve ever seen. Now I know why my brother Page so highly recommended it, and why he calls it one of his favorite cities of all that he’s ever visited in his years of travel.
We arrived at the harbor around 10:30 AM, and walked into the old town. It was overcast but not raining yet. Settled into the Telegraaf Hotel on Vene street inside the Old Town’s walls. Lovely room.
Wandered in search of the bike rental place, found it on Uus Street, and arranged for a day out along the coast for a day’s worth of country riding, an hour and a half drive from the city. Then we found a great place called Hell’s Hunt, where we found Pilsner Urquell on tap, and a small, pub-style lunch. It was hard to get any pictures inside, but the ceiling is made of doors of all types — presumably, the doors through which we will all pass as we enter hell . . .
It was raining by the time we began our wanders again after lunch, so we headed back to the hotel room to pick up my rain gear. It rained for a while, stopped for a while, then began again, off and on all day.
Ate African food at a teensy place near the bike rental company and it was a delicious meal, though the only seats left inside were under the stairway up to the (wet) roof garden, and the tables were so low neither of our sets of legs could fit comfortably underneath. They offered some local beer, and evidently the Eastonian preference is for lager, not our fave. It was tipping down when we left, and we stayed snug and dry from about mid-thigh up, but our legs were soaked. The Old Town hasn’t yet figured out the niceties of water handling from roofs — we were dodging great downpours off many roofs as the guttering failed; and that which made it into the downspouts was disgorged across the sidewalks, making rivers and pools and ponds everywhere. Avoid the water on the sidewalks and you run the risk of being flattened by a car in the street.
But we managed not to drown or get knocked over, and are looking forward to a lovely day tomorrow, if the current forecast holds.
I sort of went crazy taking pix, so if you want to see more, I’m going to ask you to zip along to another link in the cloud:
peregrinations 