Best trip ever?

At least this was last Saturday´s mantra when Marika, Riku, Susu and yours truly jumped on the ferry to Tallinn. The weather forecast hadn´t been very promising, so we´d made a pact that no cloud, neither literal nor figurative, shall overshadow our little getaway.
This was going to be the best trip ever, period.

In good spirits on the ferry. Best trip ever!

The Estonian capitol on the other side of the pond is a popular destination among the Finns. With only about two and a half hours by boat it´s pretty close and the language is as close to Finnish as it can possibly get. Although most of Tallinn still looks like Sovjet Russia in the 80ties, the city can boast about a beautiful historic downtown that makes you forget its dismal surroundings instantly.

Another thing makes a trip to Tallinn so attractive: compared to Finland the prices over there are ridiculously low, especially for food and drinks. Naturally the "alcohol tourism" is at an all-time high, whole vans that accommodated maybe a pair of knickers and a toothbrush when crossing over to Estonia return brimful with beer & booze, frame sparking on the floor. That wasn´t our agenda, we set out to have a fun weekend, go shopping, eat well and have maybe a beer or two...maybe three.

Best view ever.

When we set foot on Estonian ground it was raining and to spill the beans, it should not stop raining until we where on the ferry back to Helsinki the next day. So what...best trip ever!
Due to the constant drizzle I didn´t take as many pictures as I had planned but here´s a nice view over parts of the old town. On the left you see St. Olaf´s Church, in the distance on the right is the harbor with the big ferries connecting Tallinn with Mariehamn, Stockholm, Rostock, St. Petersburg and of course Helsinki.

All of us had been to Tallinn before so sightseeing didn´t have top priority anyway. While the ladies went on a little shopping spree, Riku and me tried to find a record store called World Clinic. It had popped up on the net a couple of days earlier when I´d been searching for good places to score some vinyl in Tallinn. The shop´s blog looked interesting so I was keen to comb through its shelves. On our arrival at the World Clinic we were somehow reminded how small this world actually can be, and if you, dear reader, recall what the initials "WC" usually stand for, you will also get a good idea of the store size. So what...best trip ever. The shop guy was friendly and apparently active in Tallinn´s underground scene and I think that should always be supported. Riku stepped into the breach and bought a CD. Well done!

On our way to meet the girls we saw the most bizarre vehicle, a weird hybrid between tram and bus that announced itself with rattling chains on the asphalt:

Environment friendly and brings you to wherever is a contact wire. Best bus ever.

The light sign in the window reads "1" but this Trans-Siberian transformer looks rather like a number two. Check out the roof thingies connecting it to the electronic grid. Obviously the chains we heard were grounding this beauty!

Two beds, one tv. Best hotel room ever.

Re-united with the female part of our crew we first quenched our thirst with a couple of brews in a bar before going back to our hotel. We were checked into City Hotel Portas, located directly at the harbor. It´s cheap but clean and peaceful, and that´s all I ask for when staying just for one night (basically a couple of hours). On arrival we had stored our small luggage in the lobby, now it was time to bring our belongings (old and new) to our rooms and take a refreshing shower. Everyone was pretty hungry when we left again for the old town. The plan was to eat out opulently but we had not yet decided where to do so. After scanning the streets for a while we made our choice and it was a good one:
The restaurant Elevant. If you´re ever in Tallinn, go there! Placed nicely on the second floor of an historic house and decorated tastefully, a friendly staff serves you marvellous indian food in a chilled-out atmosphere. So chilled-out in fact, that we were the last customers to leave. Best trip ever, or what?

Hot indian food makes you thirsty, so we tried to find a couple of bars we had heard about. This endeavor proved to be a bit difficult even with that microscopic map of ours. Try to orientate yourself in dark narrow streets and pouring rain. Not an easy task but thus we managed to put more bars to the list than we already had.

Best...oh well.

We had a lot of fun until we called it a very long day around 3am (or 4am? Clock changed to summertime that night). Next morning started with a humble breakfast, then we had to already get packed and check out. On the ferry we all agreed that we had had a splendid time, despite the constant rain, which stopped exactly now to give way to beautiful sunlight. One of our crew members could even update the status of a missing mobile phone from lost to found. Best trip ever indeed!

Make sure to check out:

World Clinic (in Estonian)

Elevant (in English)
City Hotel Portus (in English)
Hell Hunt (in English)
Drink Bar & Grill (in English, stupid name, great bar)
Must Puudel (in Estonian)