Today, I ventured out without being accompanied by a grown-up. I had no real objective, other than wandering around to find my bearings.
It was much colder today than yesterday. When I woke up I excitedly looked outside only to be greeted by a slightly uninspiring grey sky and the promise of cold, but it was mercifully neither windy nor rainy. I was not to be deterred from trying out my new-found word of Estonian — filtrikohv, hardly a stretch — and adding croissant just in case in my temporary new favourite place to have breakfast, Kohvik Hetk.
I felt my breakfast didn’t take as long as I’d have liked, but nonetheless set off to Freedom Square. When I arrived, there was a service of some kind being led by a cleric next to the Solidarity Stone, a gift from the Polish Embassy which is dedicated to the Polish national movement Solidarność, crucial in the struggle against the communist regime. I crossed the square and climbed the stairs past the Freedom Cross to the Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, but wasn’t able to look inside because there was a funeral in progress.
Tallinn boasts some of the best-preserved medieval fortifications and is proud of the fact that a lot of its city wall, as well as 20 defensive towers, are still here today. It was a short walk from the cathedral to the Danish King’s Garden with its three slightly ominous monks and collection of recycling bins.
From there, it’s an echanting walk down the cobbled Pikk Jalg to the lower city, where there’s lots of other stuff to see.
The city has two legs, one of them longer than the other, which is why Tallinn is sometimes referred to as the city that limps. The Pikk Jalg, or long leg, is a narrow cobblestone street descending from the upper town (Toompea) to the lower town along the old wall with the Estonian Academy of Sciences and the Office of the Chancellor of Justice looking down on you. It’s Tallinn’s steepest street and was originally used by carriages and horses while its shorter sibling, the Lühike Jalg, was used only by pedestrians on account of its steps.
Useless tourist that I am, I wandered somewhat aimlessly along the the imaginatively-named Long Street (Pikk Tanav) until I exited the old town through the Great Coastal Gate and ended up looking at Fat Margaret’s Tower, a rather stout and unflatteringly-named fortification which now houses the Estonian Maritime Museum and makes me wonder just how many hörgud vastlakuklid the poor dear must’ve eaten to deserve such a moniker.
In the neighbouring park, a man was practising his petank skills in the snow and I couldn’t work out whether he was foolhardy or hardcore. I stumbled across an edifice somewhat ominously marked only “bunker”, but it was closed.
On my walk back along the long street, I saw a sign for the KGB Prison Cells which I located, but didn’t visit, instead heading back past the Russian Embassy and its blue and yellow decorations to the Holy Spirit Church.
Host showed me this yesterday and I had hoped to get in and have a look around as I could hear organ music, but I didn’t have 1,50€ in cash; both the member of the order at the door and I knew full well I wouldn’t be praying if I went in for free. He informed me there’s an organ concert every Monday at 6pm which is “free with a donation”. I shall go to that and at the same time look at the lovely clock.
A stone’s throw from the Holy Spirit Church is the Town Hall Pharmacy. Nobody actually seems know exactly when it opened, but there are records of its existence and operation dating back to the early 1400s which apparently makes it Europe’s oldest and continuously-open pharmacy. I went inside with Host yesterday and looked around the side-room of peculiarities — a mini museum of all things medicinal — while she dealt with the apocethary.
Tired from a lot of walking I went home and, after a little falafel-induced afternoon snooze, went to the supermarket to buy provisions and discovered that there is such a thing in this world as a vodka aisle. In this wonderful place they sell 100ml takeaway vodka cups for 1,99€. Noodles be praised.
I really wanted mine to come with a straw that I could stab through the metal lid and slurp on my way back to the appartment.
