tallinn

so we get off the hellish bus having seen more trees than either of us had previously imagined. plus loads of storks which was cool. and again with the taxi. but this time a big blacked out merc with a russian driver. we'd been in riga after all. and again dropped off right where we were staying. we walked up the street and i said - look there's the hostel. and t said - isn't that a stripclub above us. and isn't that a sex boutique next door. and yes it was.

and that was our abiding memory of tallinn. very nice yes but loads of stripclubs, russian speaking women hanging out outside them, dodgily dressed chain smoking russian blokes in tow. while riga there was an undercurrent in cleaner, more tourist friendly tallinn you had the sense you could get into bad trouble much more easily.

the old town itself was nice to look at but full of tourists, like a theme village and as soon as we left, which was only briefly, we realised what an island it was. outside the centre the prices halved, the bigger buildings became faceless, more modern, and those avenues with lovely old wooden houses were places the tour groups just didn't go. we'd meet people later who'd been to tallinn years before and wouldn't go back now. riga should look at tallinn carefully if it doesn't want to turn into it.

which is a shame as in riga we'd had a sense of latvia but in tallinn we had no sense of estonia or its people. we went to the kumu to see the estonian art, saw the same images we'd seen in the soviet exhibition in riga, old cold war era cartoons from workers magazines, where the workers are all proud and free and the capitalist bosses are crude jewish caricatures. as for the more modern estonian art many excuses were made for the sense of not knowing what to do in the face of the soviet collapse but by and large we just didn't like what we saw, not because of any dislocation but because it just plain wasn't that good

our best times in tallinn were when we got out of the old town, away from its theme park old worldiness and into the park, onto the tram. or, as on our last night into the dm bar, a place which only plays depeche mode, 24 hours a day. strange yes, but oddly enjoyable, especially after a couple of vodkas the size of a house or, in t's case, the strange and vile smelling local tourist tipple, vana tallinn (even worse than the latvian black balsam which she'd also tried)

t recommends the textile and design museum, we both thought the kalev chocolate was better than the latvian laima (tasted like cooking choclate - sorry, latvia). the best food we ate was in the african restuarant, just across the road from the (astonishly) scottish club. but the best thing, still that crazy depeche mode bar.....