Tallinn, Estonia

The boat arrived in Tallinn at about 7am this morning. We quickly had breakfast and then disembarked to go explore this little city. Estonia was under Soviet control from 1940 until they regained their independence in 1991, and it is a city of two halves, with a beautiful historic centre and then a more modern area with ugly 1950's Soviet buildings.

It is such a small city that one can easily walk around the historic centre in a short while. Unfortunately when other cruise ships arrive there are too many tourists, usually getting in the way of my photos! However, it is a beautiful and charming little city, well worth visiting.

This is a view of the Town Hall Square. I have also added a photo of the very beautiful cathedral which stands high up above the city. Music is very much part of their culture and the buskers were of a very high standard - so another extra of a lute player. The buildings are all pretty colours as can be seen in the third extra photo. My final extra photo is of the boat, it is the smaller of the two and this shows its size quite well.

We were very lucky with the weather - the boat staff say it often rains when they visit Tallinn, but today we had sunshine and blue skies although it did cloud over as we walked back to the boat and now it is raining. We are about to set sail again, our next destination is St Petersburg. As one cannot visit Russia without rather expensive visas, it was the better option to organise tours as then the tour guide is our host and consequently we do not need visas. We will be in St Petersburg for three days and we have a full program organised with tours everyday including an after hours visit one night to a palace.