Estonia

Sailing over seas smooth as glass, following a truly memorable day in a town I knew nothing about, a good workout in the gym (after 4 miles of walking through town), and now back in the room with a martini in hand before heading off to dinner. It is quite the day.

I don’t know when this will get posted … perhaps not for several days when we get to Helsinki. But here goes my life in a capsule since Kiel, Germany. That includes today’s stop of Tallinn, Estonia. My friend and former colleague Will Frampton sent me an email last week after learning I would be in Tallinn, which split away from the Soviet Union nearly 20 years ago. He said it was an amazing town … one of the favorites he has visited. I’ve got to agree with Will. It has now entered my top 10 towns of all time.

Tallinn dates back to 100 AD and at various times was part of Viking, Danish, and mostly Russian rule. Tallin was spared the destruction that so many similar towns suffered in WWII and because of that, the inner core of the “Old Town” which includes neighborhoods built in the 13^th century is still intact. It’s not preserved specifically as a tourist destination because old Tallinn is still a functioning town with homes, apartments, stores, churches, and restaurants. But with the history and well-preserved architecture, it is a popular tourist spot especially for those of us who think old is The Golden Gate Bridge. I especially liked the museum of 17^th Century Instruments of Torture.

The town was packed. It was a Saturday. The weather was the best of the year (sunny and in the 80s). And there were two big cruise ships in town. But there was plenty to see. As ancient as Tallinn is, it is also surprisingly a technological hub. It is here where Skype was developed. And it is one of those places that offers free Internet throughout the city to anyone with a laptop. But it comes with a warning. When you sign on, you receive a notice in all sorts of languages that if you don’t have good up to date security on your computer, you’ll likely fall victim to hackers and cyber thieves (they didn’t say anything about pick pockets …. though we’ve been warned that’s the specialty in St. Petersburg). With free Internet, I have never seen so many people just hanging out with laptops (they outnumber cell phones here). The problem however, is that with so many people in town today, the system became overloaded, and if you could get on, it was slower than dial-up. What do you expect for free?

That’s it for now. I’ll add more here after St. Petersburg