Estonia Day 1: Travel and Rain

​Today was a travel day.  We were up and on the bus before 9 and heading out of Riga.

On the way out of town, our guide pointed out the different buildings according to who was in charge in Russia at the time… Tsar Alexander (19th century), Stalin, Lenin, Brezhnev, etc.  The Kruschev buildings were the worst - with small rooms and limited windows!

We crossed into Estonia around 11, and stopped just over the border to go for a walk in a bog.  The Estonian Luitemaa Natural Preserve had a boardwalk for a mile or so out into the bog.  The rain held off long enough for us to enjoy that walk in the fresh air. Our guide was very interested in making sure we knew all of the things that she could forage from the bog - mushrooms, cranberries, loganberries, wild blueberries, moss, etc. She also spent a lot of time pointing out little pink/red flytraps, and talking about how lethal bogs are.

We stopped in Parnu for lunch, and enjoyed the charming town with lovely flowers and cement elephants (?!?) in the occupation monument plaza.  After lunch, we walked along a pedestrian street seeing some very cool Estonian crafts.

As we drove through the flat countryside of forests and farms, our guide told her father’s family’s story of the enormous hardships they endured in the deportation to Siberia, including death by starvation, and her mother’s family’s escape to Sweden.  These experiences are evidently pretty common stories  across the Baltics, and reiterate why the people here are working so hard to support Ukraine against Russia.

We arrived in Tallinn in the rain and took a short walk in the upper town, which is quiet on the weekends because it is mostly government buildings.  There were a couple of lovely city overlooks though.

Next we visited the Singing Festival venue, which was built in 1969 for the 100th anniversary of the Estonian traditional singing competition.  This singing tradition - folk and protest songs mostly - is what led to the “Singing Revolution” to throw out the Soviets. At one point the people of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania joined in one connected line across the three countries singing their national songs. 

We checked into our hotel and then met up with the group for a short walk to the Food Court in the shopping Mall across the street.  We had amazing Georgian food.  Then we visited the even more amazing grocery store in the Mall - very impressive.

Then we returned to our room to enjoy pavlova before bed.