My Baltic Adventure — Part 2 Ambling Around Tallinn

In this post I promised I’d find a weird park, get confused for a German, nearly get on the wrong train and get caught out in a thunderstorm, it was by all accounts the perfect day in Tallinn.

First off, some cities are just built for three-day weekends and Tallinn is certainly one of them, there’s just the right amount of things to do for three days. There’s plenty of old buildings to explore, a couple of museums and a fabulous hipsterish place on the outskirts called ‘Kalamaja.’ Luckily for me, I had booked three days in Tallinn.

One of the great things about Tallinn is how compact it all is, you can easily wander around all the main sights in less than a couple of hours. It’s also a rather small city by international standards, with just over 400,000 inhabitants, making it roughly about the same size of Leeds, but don’t worry, it’s much nicer than Leeds and a lot more chilled out.

The weather continued its fine tradition of being clear blue skies, incidentally, everyone including my Airbnb host said it had been freezing the weekend before. It seemed I had, in fact, brought the sun back from Japan, as I set off to explore this wonderful city. After doing some research online, I decided to head off for a walk to the Kalamaja district.

“Guten targ.” When strangers approach me in the street, it’s usually one of three reasons. First, they’re asking for money, unfortunately, I rarely carry change, Revolut card all the way here, also I am a tight arsed git. Second, they’re lost, I seem to have this look about me that I know where I am going, (I rarely do,) as no matter where I am in the world, I constantly get asked for direction. Yes, including in Japan, and trust me. I don’t look a single bit Japanese. Third, I’ve dropped something, whether it’s a phone or some loose change, I seem to be constantly dropping things.

Though, this wasn’t one of those times, as these two girls waved to me. One of them rattled off something to me in German, I quickly went to correct their mistake, but before I could get a word in edge-ways, the other one started talking in German as well. I just stood there, nodding on, I literally had no idea what they were saying. Finally, they finished and both turned to me, seemingly expecting me to answer their question.

Slightly tongue-tied, I quickly responded “Sorry, I — I don’t speak German.” This seemed to confuse them even more, they looked almost offended at the fact I couldn’t speak their bizarre language. “But you’re German.” They both seemed rather adamant I was, in fact, German, now most of you have probably never heard me speak, but rest assured, if my accent could get any more English, I would have to be blood-related to the Queen.

“No. Sorry, I am not,” I assured them. “But, you look German.” I still can’t work out whether that was, in fact, an insult or a compliment. Anyway, we quickly moved past this and it turned out they were lost. They wanted to know the way to the port as they were getting the ferry to Helsinki, I glanced at their tickets and smiled. It turned out they weren’t getting a ferry, they were getting a catamaran, and even though the weather was still lovely, the wind has picked up and the sea was about as calm as Arnold Schwarzenegger after someone had just insulted his mother.

They explained they had been to the ferry terminal, but their ferry didn’t leave from there. I smiled again and pointed them towards the old abandoned fort. “That’s not a ferry terminal.” “Oh, yes, it is,” I assured them that was the correct place to get their ferry, but to be honest I don’t think they believed me. Served them right, confusing me for a German!

Still reeling from my encounter, I arrived at this…

Japan. Double checking to make sure I hadn’t taken a wrong turn and somehow walked across Russia, through China and into Japan, no, in fact, I had arrived at the Japanese Garden in Kadriorg Park. It’s well worth the thirty-minute walk from the centre and is a haven of tranquility in an already very tranquil city.

Also, it felt more Japanese than most the Japanese gardens in Japan and would be the perfect place to sit with a book and enjoy the afternoon sun. Of course, I hadn’t brought a book with me, so ambled a bit more around the park and then decided to head back into the city. This was my kind of travelling, just ambling around, happy as Larry enjoying the sights and sounds of a new city.

I heard the rumble on the horizon but I didn’t think much about it, the sky above me was as clear as day, and the weather forecast on my phone agreed. Not a single drop a rain was forecast for today at all. Happy that the thunder must be coming from over the mountains (Estonia doesn’t have mountains it has little hills,) I continued merrily on my way slowly walking back to my Airbnb.)

The moment I felt a couple of drops I should have known, but the sky above me was still stubbornly blue. It wasn’t forecast to rain, I told myself. It won’t rain, I continued to tell myself. Unsurprisingly, less than halfway back to the city centre the heavens opened I dived for the nearest shelter cursing Accuweather. If there’s a theme for my travels or even my life in general, it’s that I have an uncanny knack for landing on my feet. I had taken shelter at a tram stop and seeing that it wasn’t going to stop chucking it down anytime soon. My AccuWeather app stubbornly still told me it was clear skies with a 0% chance of rain. I promptly deleted that app and set about working my way around the Tallinn tram system.

It was then I remembered there was a tram stop outside my Airbnb, it had woke me up at 5 am that morning and then every 20 mins after that. I reckoned that because Tallinn was so small, all the trams would go to the same place. (Big mistake.) And with the rain still thundering down, I jumped on the next tram I saw and away I went.

Regular readers of my posts will realize that me and public transport don’t really get on very well, and soon enough I saw other trams pass me by with numbers on the front. I had no idea what number I was on, and as we went left and right at random junctions, the rain started to clear and we reached the terminus! You’ll never guess where it was. Right back at the old abandoned fort! Just in time to wave those German ladies off!

Part 3 will be up soon, where I attempt to make my way to Tartu.