My Baltic Adventure — Part 3 Discovering the heart of Estonia

Continuing the theme from the first part, I was once again running late for my train to Tartu, this time though it wasn’t my fault, honest! My alarm had failed to go off for my 8 am train, and I was rushing around my Airbnb grabbing whatever I could and shoving it in my backpack. Nope, that’s not my bikini. Now, you may be wondering why I hadn’t packed the night before, that’s a good point.

Moving on from that, I quickly threw everything into my backpack, thanked my Airbnb host, who was also wondering why I hadn’t packed the night before and made a bee-line to the railway station. Running late, a tram then rumbled by and I had a brief moment of brilliance, I could just jump on that and be at the railway station in no time.

Remembering my disaster, the previous day, where I hopped on the tram and found myself dumped at that abandoned fort again, I decided that a quick walk to the railway station would be the best course of action and let the tram pass.

Soon enough, my badly packed backpack and I found ourselves at the railway station. I like to think of myself as a pretty good traveller, okay, good is probably not the word. Experienced, yes, I am a pretty experienced traveller, l know how to not get scammed, how to avoid being murdered in my sleep, but when it comes to public transport, I am just a disaster area.

Though to be fair to myself Tallinn station isn’t exactly the easiest place to navigate around, it’s not big, but it’s also not very well signposted, and when I was there, they were doing renovation works. This meant they had removed all the platform numbers, I think they’d heard I was coming and just decided to mess with my head.

I quickly bought my ticket, even I couldn’t mess up the pronunciation of Tartu. Every time I go to buy a ticket in a foreign country I am reminded of the disaster that befell me when I tried to buy a ticket to Lujbiana in Zagreb. From that point on, I decided if I could, I would buy my tickets online. Unfortunately, the Estonian railway ticket site wasn’t working. Again, I think they’d switched it off when they heard I was coming.

When I had told my Airbnb host I was taking the train, she seemed aghast and lobbied hard for me to take the bus. ‘The bus is much better than the train.’ ‘The bus is much more reliable than the train.’ ‘The bus is never late, the train is always late.’ I don’t know if she had just bought shares in the local bus company and was doing her bit to drum up business, but she was very insistent.

Anyway, I had ignored her pleads, and was now lost on Tallinn station platform looking for Platform 3. The only snag being, as mentioned before, they had, of course, removed all the platform numbers. Fortunately, it’s not exactly the busiest of stations and there was only one train leaving at that time in the morning, so I climbed on board, waved my ticket to the guard, who assured me I was on the right train, (either that or he was swearing at me in Estonian) and away I went.

Surprisingly the journey passed pretty much uneventfully, except for the broken-down bus I saw at the side of the road as we sped past. Due to the nature of Estonia’s geography, it was never going to be one of the most picturesque train rides in the world. That is unless you like trees, there’s a lot of trees, way too many trees if you ask me.

Soon enough I arrived in Tartu, safely in one piece. I quickly dashed to my hostel, left my bag there, walked past another broken down bus and made my way down into the charming city centre. Tartu is a rather small city and due to this is rather short on sights, but for a one-night stop, to recharge the batteries and see something a bit different, it was perfect.

I always think it is a good idea to make a real effort to visit cities and places that are outside of the main cities, this way you can get a real feel for what a country is actually like. Tartu has a totally different vibe to Tallinn, it is even more laid back! Which to be honest, I didn’t realize was even possible.

Actually, Tartu is a surprisingly lovely little town, with plenty of nice parks, and some rather quirky architecture. It’s got a fascinating old observatory, built upon one of the only hills in the area and which affords stunning views over the town.

It really is a charming little city (I feel like I am using the word, charming a lot here,) and well worth a visit. If you’re up for it, you can even do a day trip from Tartu. Whereas Tallinn is the political and economic capital of Estonia, Tartu is known, according to Wikipedia, and plenty of signs littered around the city as the ‘Intellectual Capital.’ This is mainly because the country’s oldest and most prestigious university is located in the city.

This also means the city has a lot of life to it, more so than Tallinn in fact, and for a city of just less than 100,000 people has plenty of nightclubs and bars to keep you busy. I immensely enjoyed the day I spent there, exploring the parks, the observatory, the ruined cathedral and the many sculptures that litter the city.

This is the famous kissing students fountain.

Oscar Wilde in conversation with Eduard Vilde.

But this was my favourite, I don’t know what its official name was, but I like to call it ‘Sad Bear.’

All in all, I am glad I skipped the direct bus to Riga and spent a day wandering around this charming city (there’s that word again.) Tomorrow though would be a real test, an early morning train to the border town of Valga, then a three-hour wait for my connecting train to Riga…

Part 4 will be up soon, where I get stranded at a border town and an old Latvian takes a shine to me.