Eastonia 12th June

Left early and headed to Helsinki to catch the finlandia ferry to Tallinn in Eastonia it was a good trip, lot's of big ships going back and forth.

The ferry took two hours to get to Tallinn. We walked straight up to the old town with it's narrow cobbled streets.

 


 



Tallinn was made a city in 1248 but there is evidence of settlements from more than 5000 years ago.
The city wall was constructed in 1050 and had 66 defence towers.

Tallinn is the best preserved medieval city in Europe and is a UNESCO listed world heritage site.
We tried to make Tallinn a part of the tour by catching trains from Paris, then the ferry to Helsinki, but the cost was too high and the time needed was about 8 days to join the trains together.


 


The first place we came to was the old KGB prison it is an unpleasant place with cells the way you would imagine them, small and uncomfortable. We read a few sad stories about people that were victimised, most ending up executed.




After the war it became a part of the USSR.
When the Germans took possession of Tallinn it had a Jewish population of 1000, nearly all of them died at the hands of the Nazis.


 

Through more lovely streets we found a nice church. 
St Nicholas' Church. It had been rebuilt after the war. Tallinn was badly bombed during the war. 
The original church was built in the 13th century as a tower which doubled as a defensive fortress. It had major alterations in the 15th century when it came more to resemble it's present day shape.







 


When the Russians took over after the war they didn't like the decoration on the buildings so they went about grinding it all off. They soon realised it would be quicker to just cover it up. This photo shows an uncovered section of decorative arch that had been covered up.  






 





We moved on to the market in the town square where there were some great items for sale. But with our small suitcases not for us.




The capital of Eastonia the city of Tallinn is divided into the new and the old. We didn't go into the new section because it is like any other modern city.
Tallinn is 80 klms south of Helsinki, across the Gulf of Finland.
Tallinn is very hi tech and is listed in the top 10 digital cities in the World. It is the birthplace of Skype among others. It is often referred to as the Silicon Valley of Europe.

 


Alcohol tax is low and there is little control on the import of alcohol back into Finland. There were a lot of people on the ferry back with trolleys full of beer and spirits. Eastonia increased the tax on alcohol but then discovered that the Finnish people stopped visiting, so they dropped it again.





Back home to Hamina around 11.30pm, a long and enjoyable day. The old city of Tallinn is a marvelous place, but it is being discovered by tourists and it won't be long before it starts get as busy as Florence and Venice.