Eurovision, Baltic style

We arrived in Tallin in the afternoon and were rather impressed at our ability to navigate the tram system to the Old Town. Tragically, this sense of direction didn't last, and we spent an awfully long time searching up and down the medieval streets trying to find the hostel which had moved location since our guidebooks were published. Eventually, we found where we were supposed to be and dumped our bags for the final time on this trip.

Tallin is an interesting last place to stop as for many people, it is where they begin their trip and so the hostel was full of people beginning their journeys, and Lucy and I were quite sad to realise it was all over for us. A guy called Jonathan was staying in our dorm and was doing a very similar trip to us except in reverse and taking in Belarus and Ukraine, so we spent a lot of time sharing tips of Romania and Bulgaria with him. He also let us know that all museums in Tallin were open and free until midnight tonight, so after dinner we headed to the City Musuem. It was quite a bizarre museum, with a huge section on men's clothing, which we didn't really understand, but was nevertheless quite entertaining.

After a coffee in the Main Square, we headed back to the hostel to watch the end of Eurovision, a first for me. It was amazing to see how seriously it is taken here, proper cause for national pride! After complaining bitterly about the unfair voting, we headed to bed.

The following morning, we headed to the Cathedral for mass, a small and beautifully simple building just down the road from us. After joining in with the hymns in our best Estonian, we headed up to the Lutheran Cathedral, a very German building with lots of coats of arms and white-washed walls. We had lunch in a little artisan's cafe before heading to Kadriog, a district of Tallin with beautiful parks and a couple of art museums in the old summer palaces of the Tsars. By far the most interesting museum for me was the modern art gellery which took you through Estonian art chronologically and was a great way of seeing how historical events had been interpreted artistically. The park is very beautiful, and a wonderful place to just wander round and soak up the atmosphere. This district also houses the Song Bowl, where the Estonian song festivals are held. It is the biggest ampitheatre-type place I have ever seen. Song in Estonia, as elsewhere in the Baltics, played a huge role in the emerging national consciousness and later in the fight against Soviet oppression. A lovely evening spent at the Hostel, chatting with everyone about their travels, including one guy's experience of con men on the Russian border, which made me very glad that we chose not to go to Russia.

On Monday morning we said goodbye to Jonathan, who was heading to Tartu, and spent the morning exploring Tallin's Old Town and updating the blog. In the afternoon, we met up with Varro and his lovely family who are friends of Lucy's aunt and uncle. They gave us a really interesting tour of Tallin, including the school that Varro's mum founded in the 1980s as a counter to Soviet education which has lots of attached artisan's workshops. Varro also took us to see the Stalinist area, which was used to house the huge number of Russians who were moved here under the communist regime. That evening, we had a lovely dinner with them and their friends and had a great time playing Narnia with their children. A really lovely family.