It’s true. My trip to Tallinn was one of the most perfect travel trips I had gone on. Great company, fantastic entertainment, beautiful city.. it couldn’t get any better. The only down side was a severe bout of cold that I had caught just before travelling. Otherwise, I would give this trip a 9.8 out of 10.
I’ve used the famous ‘party boats’ 2 other times with nothing much to write home about. While the first time, I had travelled alone on the Viking Line, the 2nd time was a total disaster with a spoilsport co-traveller driving everyone nuts, making me give up that it was going to get any better. But looks like I hit jackpot the 3rd time!
First, the milestones: With Tallinn, my tour of the Baltic countries is complete. (Clap! Clap!)
Second, the cruise: Well, what can I say? I remember casually mentioning a Tallinn trip to the guys and they jumped at the idea. Much to my surprise, they even followed thru and turned up, which for some reason, I was extremely sceptical about. We were lucky; our cabin was on Deck A, a well-kept, well-lit room with (best of all) a window looking out into the sea. CH had bought a board game with him, just like he said he would. After much wowing of the cabin, we sat down for dinner that we had packed. Or rather I had dinner that other people had packed!
Armed with our boardgame called Carcassonne, (no, it has nothing to do with carcasses or other such morbid things) we marched off to the night club to pick out the best seats. Surprise, surprise. The club had a fantastic cabaret show in store for us. Not to mention all the games that they came up with, to keep the audience’s interests. For the first time on a boat trip, I bought cocktails. Cheers to great company!
Third, the city: Tallinn is a unique amalgamation of snazzy, modern buildings one one side and well-preserved medieval architecture on another. We started out from the New town with all its fancily built large shopping malls and walked into a fairy tale of an Old Town. I’ve seen many ‘Old Towns’ before - in Riga, Vilnuis, Visby and ofcourse our very own Gamla Stan in Stockholm. But Tallinn is the prettiest of them all. It is quite obvious that they’ve taken a lot of pain to give it a fairytale look. The cobble-stoned roads, winding streets, ancient churches, quaint inns, pastel coloured buildings, artistic motifs and smiling girls, everything was just awesome. Some of the old world charm credit goes to this huge restaurant establishment called The Hansa. At various vantage points, there were pretty wooden carts behind which pretty teenaged girls, dressed up in pixie clothes and hats, roasted almonds. They cheerfully call out to you and generously offer free almonds and ofcourse you are soon suckered into a conversation of how good it is to eat at The Hansa. But hey, no one’s complaining. I couldn’t help but stare at their attire and in one particular case, even the girl!
Now the Hansa also has a store selling very interesting things. And nothing but pure curiosity led me to a restaurant at the back of the store. I was simply expecting more parts of the store but was surprised to walk into a packed eating joint. I named it the ‘Harry Potter Inn’. J.K Rowling would be proud. Care has been taken to make every detail as medieval as possible including the restrooms. (I didn’t want to use them! Too dark and depressing for me!! For some reason, I prefer bathrooms which are well-lit. Must be all the ghost stories that was told in school – they all talked about girls becoming possessed in toilets!)
The food was great! Atleast, on the menu it was fancy. It read ‘ Sausages made from Bear, Boar, Elk and Reindeer’. Was a bit expensive, but what the heck!
Lots of pictures and walking around later, we picked a quaint little, ‘award winning’, coffee shop close by. Soon after, we hit a grocery store to stock up for our trip back! Having stayed in Stockholm for over 8 months, I found every food item in Rimi cheap!
Our trip back was even more eventful. Our board game became famous and people stopped by to talk to us about it. When we returned to our cabin after another fantastic Cabaret, we decided to eat with our doors open. We watched and laughed at all the drunk youngsters. Some insisted on joining us in our cabin for a ‘after party’, one puked a cookie right outside the cabin, some others were caught in a brawl in the corridor.
The only thing I missed was the tour of the Captain’s deck. But hey, it was still the best boat trip ever!
