WorldTravelReynolds

Overlooking the city of Tallin

We docked in Tallin, Estonia this morning on time despite a medical emergency that required us waiting on a medical helicopter to land on the bow of the ship. The area out here has so many tiny islands and the amount of time it would take for the ship to return to Stockholm wasn’t feasible. It was interesting to watch and praying the person that was evacuated gets the care they need.

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

The only excursion by Royal Caribbean for Tallin was Medieval town in Rakvere. The size of Estonia is 45,338 km². Our tour guide stated you can drive across it in 4 hours. There are approximately 400,000 people that speak their own language of Estonian. It’s similar to Finnish. We have found that almost all our tour guides from Stockholm to Finland all have very similar accents.

Inside the Cathedral was beautiful and peaceful

The children are taught English, Finnish and Russian in school and most of them prefer English as their primary language. I’m sure their grandparents aren’t too happy about them losing their heritage. I would think that they speak Estonian at home but who knows. On February 24, 1918, Estonia issued a declaration of independence. This was done by the new Soviet Russia, which was followed by a war with the Soviets to ensure Estonian liberty.

After two years, on February 2, 1920, the war ended with the Tartu Peace Treaty. The treaty guaranteed Estonia’s independence for all time. Fast forward to 2022 and on February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. There was no celebration of Independence this year. Tallin is also a part of NATO which they joined in 2004.

106 steps up and the same back down!  whew!

Rakvere means bull. She said a certain body part comes up missing a lot and has to be replaced.

There are many refugees here from Ukraine and many of them have jobs to provide for their family. Like many schools in northern europe the children start school here at the age of 7 and graduate at age 18. They must fulfill 8-11 months in the military before or after they attend 1 of 6 universities of their choosing. Ok enough with the history lesson.

Entering the torture chamber and Hell!

Food was served medieval style in old pottery cups and plates. At least we didn’t have to eat with our hands!

Rakvere means Bulls head. The castle in Rakvere, is about an hour from Tallin. We had to walk 100 steps up to the castle and of course 100 back down when we were done. It was actually 106 that I counted. We had lunch of some type of meat stew (Chuck ate it) and a wheat barley dish with salad. We both liked the wheat barley.

Chuck playing some kind of medieval game

The only non breathing horse to buck me off!

It was also served in old pottery plates, cups and bowls. Very old style. Estonia makes their own vodka just like Finland. They had 5 shots of vodka to try. 3 were Estonian and the other two were Smirnoff and Absolute. The Estonian vodka was really good. I was amazed at the difference in the taste. I think they put something in the other two to make them bitter. 😉.

This little guy was so cute and furry!

After lunch we walked into Hell. Yes, thats the name. It was very dark and you couldn’t see the front of your hand. Plus we went through a torture chamber and a room that he said wasn’t for everybody. It reminded me of a haunted house at halloween. They types of torture weren’t pleasant. After surviving the haunted house they showed us some medieval sports/games of sort. One was a wooden horse.

5 shots of vodka gets an award!

I did it! This young guy Cory was trying to keep up with them.

The stirrups were too low and I couldn’t get my legs over the horses wide girth. I rolled off and gave everyone a good laugh. Alcohol was not involved! After all the fun, we headed back to the bus for a little city tour of Tallin before heading back to the ship.

a painting outside the mens bathroom. It was funny!

We stopped at prominent landmark, a Lutheran church named Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. Very beautiful inside and out. It was a working church. We had to be quite walking through. No sitting in this church service. No chairs! We made it back to the ship in plenty of time to get ready for dinner and entertainment. It was a very long day and we have to get up early tomorrow for our next adventure in Helsinki.