First Time to Visit Tallinn, Estonia

We had another beautiful day for touring; it was around 63 degrees F, a little bit cooler than the previous days.

This is what the Old Town looked like from our ship:

Our shore excursion covered "Upper Old Town and Kadriorg". Our guide was a young man (about 37 years old) with long hair named "Lauri". He did an excellent job!

Estonia was formerly owned by Russia, but it has been independent for a period of time now. We had the expectation that it would be a little bit bleak and Eastern-bloc looking like Budapest. However, we found Tallinn to be beautiful and were surprised by how much we liked it.

Our first stop was to see Peter the Great's Humble Summer Home in Kadriorg. The bus stopped to let us out at a beautiful park, and then we walked a short distance to the Summer home.

Here is a shot of our tour guide, Lauri:

Lauri said that Estonia is one of the top ten countries for cleanest air. I would have to agree with that; the air felt and looked very clean.

Brock really liked the blooms on this beautiful tree:

The Summer Home was extraordinarily beautiful; there were many windows to let in the light, and the plaster work was just gorgeous. The walls were painted in light pastel colors, with white plaster work. I liked it much better than the dark and dreary castle that we visited in Copenhagen. This is what the Kadriorg Palace looks like from the outside:

Here is a shot capturing the detailed plaster work in the palace:

After our visit to the Kadriorg palace, we boarded the bus and it dropped us off at the upper part of Old Town. Dominating the landscape there was the Russian Orthodox church:

Here are some more shots taken in the Old Town:

The Old Town has a wall around most of the city, and this shows the Citadel:

We didn't have much time for shopping; I bought us a few bottled waters before it was time to head back to the ship.

The ship departed around 5:00 p.m.

We had lunch and dinner on the ship. In the evening we attended a concert by guitarist Norman Brown and tenor saxophonist Richard Elliot! It was really top-notch. However, there weren't many people left in the audience at the end. This was probably because most of the cruisers needed to get up early in the morning for shore excursions in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Our impressions of Tallinn, Estonia: We loved it! It's a pretty small town, very picturesque, lots of trees, landscaping, and green spaces. We enjoyed the clean air and the beautiful day that we had there. It appeared that people were doing well there economically, judging from the types or cars we saw. We didn't notice many beggars. We barely scratched the surface of touring the Old Town, so we'd like to return some day to cover it better.