Estonia was a real surprise and fantastic – we loved it. We were not sure what we expected coming to Estonia. There was this void in our imagination which was very quickly filled with impressions of a very modern country.
Tallinn itself is a looker, sure enough. But the rest of what we saw was great too. G4 everywhere (Estonians regard fastinternet as a human right!), food at the highest standard, services in the restaurants worthy of 5 stars in Austria and so on.
Sure, the roads are small compare to ours. But with just over 1,3 mio people, of which about half live in in the 4 biggest cities it does not make much sens to have an “Autobahn” all over the place.
In fact the lack of the motorways is a wonderful thing as the roads, especially country roads, are blissfully empty and invite you to explore the countryside by bike. In fact this is what we are planning for 2018. We want to come again and cycle for 2 weeks through Estonia.
Well, actually what we want to do is to eat our way through Estonia.
What will stick in our minds for now is sunshine, cycling, canoeing, endless sandy beaches, medieval Tallinn and food to die for. Victoria’s favourite: “frozen blue cheese cheesecake”! (Victoria adds: In fairness, the cheesecake tied with the equally gorgeous so-called “bread pudding” – which had NOTHING in common with the labs of dough and raisins that go under that name in Britain -and which I also ordered after trying a bit of Felicity’s. I seriously intend, on my next trip to Tallinn, to eat my way through the dessert section of the menu at Rataskaevu 16, assuming we can get a table. If I book it six months advance, it ought to work).
Victoria adds: As Wolfgang says, we had no real idea of what Estonia would be like, except that Tallinn would be picturesquely mediaeval. Which it is. What we absolutely weren’t expecting was that Estonia would be a gourmet paradise. We aren’t foodies at home – no matter how good food is, it simply isn’t worth forking out over a hundred euros for a meal – but in Estonia there are really fantastic restaurants serving fabulous meals at the price of a normal meal at home. We also weren’t expecting the long sandy beaches or the crystal clear (and extremely cold) water- so cold that it didn’t matter that it was full of eerily beautiful moon jellyfish, because I had no intention of going in (I looked the jellyfish up on a Swedish website, which said they are overpopulating the Baltic Sea and made the extremely practical suggestion that we should start eating them. However Felicity, who has eaten a jellyfish already, says they are chewy and not very nice, and when I prodded a dead one on the beach it was indeed much more rubbery than its ethereal appearance in life would suggest). We also weren’t expecting that accommodation would be such good value for money (except on Kihnu – ha! – where it was at least still cheap, if not very nice), but then we also weren’t expecting that everywhere would be booked out. When you literally have to drive 150km to find the nearest available bed to a dump like Narva, it alerts you to the importance of proper planning. When we come back next year, Wolfgang wants to go cycling and I want to bear-watching, so I think we shall venture into the wilds of Eastern Estonia with an extremely well-planned and booked-ahead itinerary. And then we will go to Tallinn and eat.
Sailing-wise, it’s much less interesting than the Scandinavian archipelagos (but then where in Europe isn’t?). Estonia is completely flat and the land slopes gently into the sea, so not only do you have to walk a loooooong way out to swim, you also can’t sail near enough to the shore to see anything interesting, nor can you free anchor, so it was marinas all the way. I must say, having arrived back in Finland yesterday, I was really happy to see big rocks again. I missed you, big rocks!