Baltic Cruise – Tallinn, Estonia

My attempt to evenly disperse our holiday pictures and avoid saturating my blog with travel photos all in one go is now kinda dragging on a bit. We went on holidays in July and it’s now almost October. I promise it’s almost over as Tallinn, Estonia was our second last destination. And I should say, I’m saving the best destinations for last. 

The Old Town section of Tallinn was within walking distance from our cruise ship. I wasn’t feeling the best that morning [I sure drew the short end of the stick on this holiday], so we took our time and without a map, wandered the purely in.cred.ible streets of Tallinn. We didn’t know where we were going, I couldn’t tell you where we went, but our eye balls didn’t care … 

The only thing I can say is that my husband has the patience of an absolute SAINT. I don’t think I took 4 consecutive steps without stopping and taking a picture. A living and breathing saint. 

We came to the Oleviste Church. There was a sign saying for 2 euro you could walk to the roof of the church where there were some promising views of the city. “Oh, that sounds nice“, I said. “How about we climb it before lunch?“. Not my finest idea, and it took only 5 minutes for me to realize this. We entered the church and were pointed in the direction of an ancient, stone, very steep tightly-spiraled stair case with a very lax rope dangling around the edge. Not too bad, right? Just hold on! NOPE. 

After about 20 steps we heard voices and quickly realized this wasn’t a one-way staircase. Our suspicions were confirmed when 10 people came down the staircase and we were left trying to figure out how they’d pass us. Badly, that’s how. Did I mention I have a fear of heights so knowing you’re climbing higher and higher up a set of stairs and moments away from possibly tripping and falling all the way down made me a bit nervous. Not to mention I also have vertigo so repetitive movements such as oh I don’t know, going around a spiral stair case, makes me VERY dizzy. Then I’m so dizzy I think I’m going to trip. Basically, it was all bad. 

After 20 minutes of avoiding passer-byers, not falling our deaths [slightly dramatic, I know] and holding on for dear life, we reached the top. And it got worse. I won’t go into detail about how incredibly flimsy the wooden planks were. All I’ll say is not all of them were secured onto the roof. So husband walked around and took some picturesque photos while I held onto the doorway [seriously. Thank you, crippling fear of heights] and I envisioned the 10,000 ways I would fall to my death. 

The views of Tallinn were pretty immense. Or so I saw when we got back on solid ground and I clicked through the photos husband took. I sure was grateful for lunch after that.

We wandered for a couple more hours before we started heading back to the cruise ship. Towards the outskirts of Old Town, possibly my favourite building that perfectly merges old with new, as Old Town turns into modern downtown … 

That building / house is perfection and I need something like this to happen in my life. I love the juxtaposition between old and new, jagged and curved, bright and dark. My eye balls can’t handle it. Tallinn, you’re way too much. 

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2 Comments

  1. John JJP
    September 27, 2014 / 07:13

    really beautiful pictures. i don't know why but i wouldn't have thought estonia would be *that* pretty!i really like the last building too. really nice architecture!

  2. September 28, 2014 / 12:32

    Such a pretty place, and some great pics! That little near-death experience sounded scary – it definitely doesn't look very safe and secure up there! At least you lived to tell the tale! 😉 xx