Estonia - Tallin - roofs - Elter photo
1. The gothic town hall and the Church of the Holy Spirit (with beautiful wood carving inside) are both from the 14th century
2. The view of the harbor from the roof of the Maritime Museum, and the sight of those enormous cruise ships
3. The towers, bastions and gates
4. Those shops in the old town which tastefully evoke and emphasize the medieval character of the city
5. Estonian girls are very, very beautiful, with a more natural beauty than among Russian girls
6. The magnificent interior of the Niguliste church
7. The fact that the two streets leading to the upper town are called ‘Long Leg’ and ‘Short Leg’
8. The pharmacy (Raeapteek) which has been in operation since the 15th century, and which tourists can enter on Mondays
9. The Kompressor pancake house, which has a wide and interesting selection
10. The tasteful, modern, Scandinavian style of architecture in the Kalamaja district
1. The large number of drunk young people around the castle in the evening – they don’t bother tourists, but still there’s an unpredictability to their behavior which makes it wiser to avoid them
2. On Friday and Saturday evenings the local drunks are supplemented by the imported drunks, either brought across by ferry from Finland in search of cheap Estonian alcohol, or the still-drunker British guys on their ‘stag parties’.
3. The ruthlessness of the Tallinn police when it comes to tourists drinking on the street or crossing the road on a red light (the police are in the right, of course, but all the same they seem to take a special delight in punishing tourists)
4. The taxi drivers who don’t belong to the official taxi-drivers’ association (which you can recognize by their yellow cars) are rip-off merchants, who will charge clueless tourists as much as three times the standard fare (especially if they’re drunk)
5. You have to watch out for pickpockets in Tallinn, and the local authorities have put up pictographic signs to warn tourists of the danger
6. A day of summer sightseeing can be ruined by non-stop rain, as happened to me
7. Those shops in the old town which have a kitsch, exaggeratedly medieval style are rewarded with hordes of tourists who hurry there to empty their wallets in a continual, depressing stream
8. Learning about the history of forced Russification and Sovietization is upsetting
9. A lot of electric scooters speeding along the sidewalk, which can make it dangerous to be a pedestrian
10. Unfortunate (though understandable) that public transport is only free to locals
