Tallinn, Estonia

Arriving in Tallin was relatively painless. Passport control was pretty laid back compared to all that we had endured before! No visa required so I guess that makes life a little easier. Custom no hassle either. Was strange, even after being off the boat for 5 minutes, you could sense that it was going to be a lot different to Russia.

Found the hostel (Beata Hostel), just on the edge of old town, without too many hassles. Turned out to be a very handy place to stay, close to all of the sights.

Most of the time in Tallin was spent wandering the old cobble stoned streets and sampling the local brews. (Saku seems to be pretty popular, as well as A. Le Coq. About $2.50 for a pint. Not too bad. Although the cheap beer does have one downside, it does to seem to attract the stag parties from the UK.). So much easier in than Russia, people are actually interested in serving you!!!

The Old Town has been very well restored with quite a large amount of the old town walls still standing. Great for a wander at 11 at night with the sun just setting.
It is hard to do it justice in words. When I get to London town I will get around to posting some photos ! (The portable hard drive storage for my photos still seems to be working. Though I think it is going to be a nervous moment when I actually plug it into a computer to get my photos off it!!)

Tallin did have a bit of a Disneyesque feel to it, I guess it was just that it was sooooo charming - and swarming with tourists. Eastern Europe (at least Tallin, and I expect most places on our plan) isn't exactly the "undiscovered" part of the world I expected. To be honest, I expected it to be quite poor and behind the times, which has certainly not been the case. The streets sport quite a number of BMWs and AUDIs with the odd porsche or ferrari. There are also quite a few wifi access points as well. Even heading out of the Old Town in to the new town centre didn't really make that much difference to the standards.

I would definitely recommend Tallin for a weekend or so. Has been a great place to relax after some of the hassles of St Petersburg!