Saturday 27 August Tallinn Estonia

We sailed into Tallinn on a beautiful clear, sunny, and warm morning. We weren't leaving the ship until nine so we had time for a leisurely breakfast in the dining room. We left the ship in the first group and finished up in bus number one. Once again we were very lucky and and got an excellent guide. "Annie" spoke impeccable English and had a very good sense of humour. She was old enough to have experienced atrocities and hardships the Russians inflicted on Estonia and her people and some of her memories and stories are horrific. In the west we knew things weren't good in the USSR's satellite states but I don't think we had any real idea how bad things really were. Tallinn is a small city that has a village atmosphere about it, parts of it are still very medieval and parts of it very well preserved or have been or are being restored. We visited the Song Festival Ground, a natal amphitheater that hosts Estonia's national song festival. We were taken to Pirita which was the site for the 1980 Olympic Games yachting regatta. A short drive took us to Tallinn's Upper Town to see Toompea Castle, now the residence of the Estonian Parliament. We visited the Russian Orthodox Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and a Gothic dome church known as St Mary's Cathedral. We walked along gothic cobblestone streets to a viewing point from where you could see all the lower town and port area. After a short walk down Short Leg street we had lunch in a medieval restaurant, which was a experience. We were on the third floor in a long room with no natural light and only a few candles on the tables to see by. They served us soup, pork with a damper style bread with nuts in it and lentils. We were given some shopping (or relaxing) time before a short trip back to the ship. There was a market at the pier where we bought a few souvenirs. We played with the photos for a while then had dinner in the Four Seasons restaurant. After dinner we went to the show in the Stardust Lounge, where there was a German musician playing nine different instruments he was excellent except that he sweated profusely and we were seated in the front row.