It’s hard to believe it’s already been over 2 years since we took our third (and last) cruise but has not yet been 3 years since we took our first cruise with the girls. That first cruise was a tour of the Baltic Sea area and provided some of the best memories and took us to some places I never thought we’d go.
The cruise was non-stop, port after port, day after day of sightseeing and running around. But luckily we had an easy going day towards the end when we visited Tallinn Estonia. While there is plenty to do there, we opted to just wander around the city exploring the Medieval Old Towne rather than going crazy hitting museums like we had been doing for days.
Honeybun had just turned 3 and Sugarplum was 11 months and hubby’s parents cruised along with us. We got off the ship and hopped on the Hop on/Hop off bus that goes around town. We got off near the center of the old town.
As we wandered down the street with little shopping stalls built into the old stone walls of the buildings and approached the main gates of the old town, the charm juts oozed out everywhere. It felt like a different time and a different place altogether.
We headed towards the main square and wandered the streets a little. It was still fairly early in the morning and not much was open so we opted to get some coffee and a snack. We love trying local specialties and had a great time sipping out of handmade ceramic mugs and sampling some of the local “beloved pies” and enjoying each other’s company.
After our snack we headed towards the Upper Town, Toompea, which is the castle area which now houses the parliament. The area sits high upon a hill and was quite interesting to get to through narrow alleys and avoiding too many stairs with our buggies!
We had lunch at a local little restaurant where we again tried the local specialties including a number of liqueurs made from different local fruits that we really enjoyed.
We then hopped back on the tour bus, saw a little bit more of the city, country, people and culture (did you know Skype started in Estonia?)
Upon returning to the port area, we did a little browsing through the local artists stalls, had another snack, listened to a local girl playing a small harp and then reboarded our ship, rejuvenated after a fun and easy going day. Tallinn was easily one of the most beautiful and well maintained old cities of anywhere we visited.
