Tallinn, Estonia

The second main destination for my trip was Tallinn in Estonia.  For this part of the stay I got myself a Tallinn card.  This gave me access to almost all the museums in Tallinn that you would want to visit, alongside free travel on the public transport, for €45 for three days.  This was a lot better deal than the equivalent card in Riga would have been which had a very limited selection of museums etc (I think I only went to one that was on the card of all the ones that I visited) and only one day of public transport on a three day card!  However, it appears to be little known – people seemed surprised to see someone with a Tallinn card in some of the places I visited – this possibly could have been disappointment as they had to fight with an app on a phone to validate it each time!  However, all worked well, including on the trams and busses I was able to take with it.

Having this card meant that I did visit a large number of museums – even more so than normal!

I started with the collection of art museums in the Kadriorg Park area.  The star attraction is Kumu, the main site of the Art Museum of Estonia.  This is a modern gallery opened just over 10 years ago which houses a collection of more modern art and temporary exhibitions.  It probably was the biggest collection that I have seen on the trip and had some interesting pieces from the time of the Soviet occupation.

Also in the park were the Mikkell Museum, a former collection of a private collector, and the Kadorig Art Museum, which is situated in a baroque palace erected in the 18^th century by Peter the Great.  Now, Peter the Great never got to stay in the palace, but the house in which he did stay when he was in Tallinn is also in the park and is also open to visitors (as it has been for hundreds of years!).  Also in the park is the house of the current President of Estonia.  Unlike other such buildings around the world you can get very close to it (it is not fenced off) with the guard right outside the front door.  As I was there I got to see the changing of the guard – possibly not as impressive as at Buckingham Palace but interesting nevertheless, particularly when they have a spare soldier come with them to adjust their uniform when they are in place!

Back in Tallinn I visited the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design.  This had a lot of examples of glassware, book binding, furniture etc packed into a unique display concept.  In a square room they had a square case in the middle which you could walk round both the outside and the inside of, and also round the top to see the rugs etc hung on the wall.  However, as there were low archways in the room the raised walkway had steps down built into it to enable you to get under it.  At my height I was quite cynical about it but it genuinely did work – even for me!  Other art museums visited included the Adamson Eric museum, the Tallinn Art Hall, The Architecture Museum and the Photography Museum.

From a history perspective I visited the Estonian History Museum which is located in the Great Guild Hall.  This was a key building for the guilds in Tallinn historically, and is as interesting as the museum itself.  The museum showed how it had evolved over the years, and how the focus had changed to more Estonian culture after their independence from the USSR.  Other museums visited included the Tallinn City Museum, which told how the city had developed, the Russian museum and the music and theatre museum.  Whilst the museum of the occupation was closed for renovation, there was a free museum which told the story of the people’s front and the development of the independence movement from the USSR.  This included the “Baltic Way” when a human chain was formed across Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to mark the 50^th anniversary of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between the USSR and Nazi Germany at the start of World War 2 which divided Eastern Europe into Nazi and Soviet “spheres of influence”.  Pictures and the song composed for it here. 

I also went to the Energy Discovery Centre, a sort of hands on science museum in an old generating station.  This was quite eerie to visit as for a lot of the time I was the only person in it!

The centre of Tallinn is quite historic, with much of the historic town walls and battlements still in place.  This meant that you could get some interesting perspectives, with two separate locations where you could walk on the town walls (and go up the towers that were part of it).  You could also get a tour of the Bastion passages – underground tunnels that were originally part of the defensive fortifications but were later used for air raid shelters and other uses.   At the end of the tunnels was a museum of carved stone.  Two of the largest towers that were part of the defences had their own museums in it – the Kiek in de Kok told the history of the city’s defences and the “Fat Margaret” tower had a maritime museum in it from which you also got access to the roof and the views below.

As ever there were a number of Churches to see, some like St Nicholas’ which had been turned into a museum, the Dome Church, which had a collection of crests and the Holy Spirit Church.  The most impressive was probably the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral which has the look of a typical Russian Cathedral.

One of the things you have to be careful of with a three day card is which attractions are open which day.  This is particularly true for me as one of the days I had the card was a Monday, when the majority of the attractions are closed.  However, there are some open, and so I took a trip a little bit away from the centre to the TV Tower, a Soviet construction which should have views out over Tallinn and beyond.  I say “should”, as the day I went there was another rainy day and the viewing platform at the top was lost in the clouds.  This meant that at times you could see nothing, with occasional glimpses as the clouds parted.  Whilst you didn’t get the views it is just atmospheric being up there in such weather, and there were a number of interesting displays inside, particularly promoting the technology of Estonia (did you know the founders of Skype were from Estonia?).  One quirk that I haven’t seen at such towers before was that they limited your visit to one hour – I don’t know how they would check but it might have caused me some challenges were I going there to watch the sunset as I have at many such towers around the world.  As it was the sun was purely a theoretical concept!

Near the TV tower are the Botanic Gardens.  With the time of year the gardens had mainly gone over so there wasn’t that much to see, which is just as well given the rain.  Down the road was the ruins of the Pirita convent which was an interesting and dramatic sight to see.

Overall, Tallinn was a very impressive place to visit.  It is not “cheap” as might be expected of Eastern Europe (particularly compared to say Prague or Warsaw) but it is certainly reasonable compared to Scandinavia!  The city itself is nice to walk around, with the oldest part of the town on top of the hill but still lots of old buildings and cobbled streets further down within the old city walls leading down to the port.  Like Riga it was far less “Russian” than I might have expected in terms of architecture but Tallinn had probably more historic buildings and different influences.  Well worth visiting – despite the weather!

TV Trouble

As often on this blog a comment to the TV in the locations I have been visiting.  Now, this is going to be a bit tricky on this trip as there were problems with the TV in the hotel rooms in both Riga and Tallinn.  The one point of note/surprise though was that on the main Estonian TV channel they showed English-language programmes in English with no subtitles at relatively peak times in the day.  So, if you were a fan of Midsummer Murders, Foyle’s War or Call the Midwife (to note just those that I came across) you could happily move to Estonia! 

Helsinki, Finland

One of the benefits of my trip to Tallinn was going to be the opportunity to go to Helsinki for the day.  Not only would it let me go to Finland for the first time, it would be significantly less expensive than staying there!

Getting there was straightforward enough.  I got the 8am ferry from Tallinn – a passenger only fast ferry from Linda Line.  This got me in at about 9:40, from which I went via the Old Market Hall to the tourist information office to buy a Helsinki Card.  Now, this cost more for one day than three cost for the equivalent card in Tallinn, but everything costs more in Helsinki, particularly entrance to attractions, hence I went for it.

Having done this the first two attractions I visited were free!  I went to the two cathedrals of Helsinki – Uspenski Cathedral and Helsinki Cathedral.  Of the two, the Uspenski Cathedral was the more ornate, and also had views out over Helsinki from its terrace.

The weather in Helsinki was the coldest I have had it on the trip (I felt like I could have happily had gloves on at some points) and it got wetter as the day went on.  This meant that I saw some of the sites (such as the art deco railway station and the Parliament building) form the outside through the rain!

I did get to use my Helsinki card in visiting three art museums – the Atenium Art Museum (the National Gallery), the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiesma and the HAM Helsinki Art Museum.  I’m not sure that any of these really met their entrance fee compared to some of the other galleries of the world (or even of this trip), particularly as they each had galleries closed for rehanging.  The most interesting was the Atenium as dotted around the collection of works were a number of painting theoretically “on loan” from the “National Gallery of Duckburg” but in reality pastiches of some of the paintings in their collection redone with Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck etc.  It had a bit of the air of when Banksy took over the Bristol Museum, particularly as the paintings had (very) serious captions/explanations sitting below them.  As I didn’t know this was going on, it was all a bit of a surprise to me, but it certainly added some life to the displays.

My next stop was the National History Museum of Finland, to find out more about the country (which, like every country I have visited on this trip is only around 100 years old having previously been part of Russia and before that Sweden).  However, whilst I was going round I got an e-mail stating that the 19:00 ferry that I was booked on had been cancelled due to bad weather.  Whilst they told me that tickets were valid until end May 2018 that was no help as I needed to be back that day!  The e-mail was quite unhelpful, and the reply to my query made it very clear that they saw it as my problem to sort out another crossing, whatever it cost, they weren’t offering any kind of transfer.  Fortunately I also received a text message from them, also telling me it was cancelled, but adding the additional useful information that there was a 15:00 crossing I could go on.  Whilst this was much earlier than I had planned, I reached the conclusion that I may as well go and get it as it was just about practical to make it and any extended stay in Helsinki would have to be taken up with booking another ferry. 

I made it to the ferry terminal just as boarding was commencing and made it onto the ferry.  It did get a bit choppy as the journey went on (including a wave going over one side of the ferry) so if it was going to get worse maybe it was sensible to cancel the later crossing.  At least I made it back and will be able to get my flight tomorrow!  This did mean that the rest of my to do list for Helsinki had to be abandoned.  I was particularly sad not to get out to the Olympic Stadium, to add to my collection of Olympic Stadia, but given that it (and its viewing tower) were closed for renovation at the moment I probably wouldn’t have seen much, particularly with the rain pouring down!

Riga to Tallinn

Usually on these trips I take the train between the different locations that I visit.  For this trip this wasn’t a practical option – apparently you can get between Riga and Tallinn by train but it takes an age and requires you to change somewhere half way through.  Instead I went by coach, which is something I would usually shy away from as they can be quite confined and lacking in leg room.  However, the coach I went on this time – Lux Express – was a revelation.  I had paid a bit extra for a “lounge” seat, but even the standard seats looked like they had plenty of leg room.  The bus had free tea and coffee facilities (and a loo) and most impressively seat-back TVs that operated just like on a long-distance flight with the ability to watch films.  Whilst my system was slightly fragile (It had a habit of stopping the film every now and again) it did enable me to see two films I hadn’t seen otherwise and while away the time travelling.  Whilst the journey wasn’t quick, neither are American trains and I still go on them, and I expect part of the reason was that the roads weren’t dual carriageways for most of the journey (indeed the journey out of Riga went past almost every tourist attraction I had visited!)

You go past the border controls which used to exist without stopping, but oddly we were stopped for a passport check a few km further down the road!

Overall, far better than I expected – it even arrived early – to be recommended.

Riga, Latvia

For my latest trip I am heading back to Eastern Europe – going to Latvia, Estonia and Finland. 

Riga itself is relatively compact as a capital city, with the majority of sights within walking distance (for normal people – I of course would walk anywhere!).  Whilst there are a large number of museums about, a lot of them are relatively hidden – only a brass plaque would let you know sometimes that there was a museum behind a closed-looking door.  Churches also seemed to be variable in how they opened to visitors – a number were closed when they said they would be open, which means that it was only the Cathedral that I actually got to look around inside.

One of the highlights was the Latvian National Museum of Art which focussed on local Latvian artists.   The building was also interesting – whilst the majority of the galleries were traditional in nature there was an area “in the roof” at the top of the building where there was a white room in amongst the roof struts and another with glass floors down to the gallery below.  If you didn’t fancy stepping on a glass floor you would have found it quite tricky to get around.

Also from an art perspective I visited the Art Museum Riga Bourse (which had older, international art situated in the old stock exchange building), the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design and the Arsenals Exhibition Hall (which had some large landscapes by Vija Zariņa), all of which were part of the National Museum collection.  I also went to the KIM? Contemporary Art Centre, the Porcelain Museum, the Art Academy of Latvia and the Latvian Museum of Architecture.

One of the key events in recent Latvian history is the occupation by the USSR.  This is marked by a number of museums; the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, the Corner House (which is where the KGB was based) and the 1991 Barricades Museum which protected the independence.  However, Latvia hasn’t been independent for much of its life – whilst there have always been distinct peoples, they only became a country after the first world war.  I learnt more on this at the National History Museum of Latvia and the Latvian War Museum.

I took a trip out to the edge of the city to see an open air museum of Latvian Ethological History.  This has a number of old houses (many wooden, thatched buildings) which were across Latvia which are now in a wide, woodland location by a lake.  This was an unexpected delight, as it was fun to walk through the forest as well as see the buildings, which included some churches and windmills of varying designs.  The rain even stopped for most of the time I was there (but then got me as I walked back to the tram afterwards!)

Yes, it has been a wet trip.  I did take advantage of a pause in the rain to walk over the river to the National Library of Latvia and then onwards to the Botanic Gardens.  The library was really impressive – a large, modern building known as the “Castle of Light”.  You had to get a visitor’s pass to get into the building but it was worth it – there are a number of exhibitions around the different floors and lots of interesting design details.  It was also interesting to walk over some of Riga’s bridges to get there and back!

Overall, Riga was an interesting place to visit – probably not as different as I might have expected – in a lot of ways it was like a provincial German city with a fair selection of historical buildings.  Whilst I feared at one point I might be running out of things to see, in the end I had more than enough places to visit in the three and a half days I was there and there are still a number of places I didn’t get to.  However, must keep going onwards!