Tallinn, Capital of Estonia, by Motorhome

Zagan the motorhome’s parked up at Tallinn City Camping, effectively a motorhome aire with a bit of grass about 4km from the centre of the old town (N59.44800, E24.80888). There are two ‘campsites’ in Tallinn, both glorified car parks really for the price (it’s €25 a night here with electricity and a pooch, €20 without). We opted for this spot, as the other site’s another km or so further out and we weren’t sure Charlie would be allowed on the bus. Turns out he is, and the €2 a person per journey charge is the same for both sites. If you’re heading this way, and plan to use the bus, the other site (Priata Harbour Camping) sounds a bit better and comes in at €20 a night. Both sites have washing machines, but no dryer, and for some reason our site has ‘open’ showers, no doors deemed necessary around these ‘ere parts. The third option is to use some of the abundant 24 hour car parking close to the old town, roughly €3 for 24 hours, but word is thefts are also abundant…

Tallinn City Camping – Motorhomes and Campervans

Reception here – friendly folks, speak good English and hand out bus and WiFi info

Follow the signs in to Tallinn City Camping – they’re useful as it’s tucked out of the way

Some of the Tallinn parking close to the old town. We couldn’t see any guarded parking, or we’d have used it. We saw three other vans using non-guarded parking, but it sounds like almost everyone is using one of the two sites

We arrived in Tallinn yesterday via a Rimi supermarket. Our hearts race and our nostrils flare whenever we hear just how expensive the Nordic countries are. Norway ranks among the most expensive countries in the world. According to this website (which is a lot of fun to play with), Norway is the 4th most expensive place to live. All of the Nordics are in the top 20, while Estonia sits in 58th place. Yep, we’ve done our shopping in Estonia, packing on top of food we bought in Poland (90th place).

Cupboards packed with long-life Estonian grub! Tip: shop before you get to Tallinn, the supermarket we used was perhaps 20% to 30% more expensive than towns in the south

That’s some till receipt: £100 worth of grub. Pasta, rice, tinned meat and veg, sauces, dried spices… We stopped at bear meat though – seriously – it was on sale at €12 a tin.

Just as an aside, the UK sits in 12th place on the worldwide cost scale. Which means there are roughly 184 countries we could (if we were allowed in) live in at least part of the year, and be financially better off. It is, apparently, called Geographical Arbitrage – using money earned in one country to buy a better standard of living in another. Thinking about it, that’s what we’re doing right now, when we’re not in the other 11 more expensive countries that is.

That all said, the increased food, toll, ferry and fuel costs we’re about to see should be offset by the Every Man’s Right in Norway, Finland and Sweden. Denmark isn’t quite the same, but again it sounds like free camping is generally a goer. This will allow us to park up at low or no cost in some places, particularly outside of cities; Adam and Sophie only used a single campsite in all four countries. LPG, by the way, isn’t available in Finland, so we’ve brimmed off our GasIT tanks so we should have enough to get us to one of the handful of LPG stations in Northern Norway.

Aside from playing Food Tetris in our cupboards, yesterday was a washout, not much was achieved in Team Zagan. The rain fell steadily all day, and we entertained ourselves with a couple of films. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel had us both smiling and, afterwards, checking out the cost to rent a room in Jaipur for a few months (India is in 122nd place, and therefore cheap)! After a few beers, some looking around at the various vans in a German tour group and a sodden pooch walk, we hit the sack.

This morning the rain continued to fall. I got up at 5am, light even under a laden sky, to watch the water fall for a while and read up on news back home. The EU Referendum campaigning, a democratic boxing match of utterly indecipherable claims and counterclaims, had ceased for a day in response to the horrific street killing of Jo Cox. Russia, representing 100 million followers, pulled out of a meeting of Orthodox churches at the last minute, after 55 years of planning. And Ronaldo missed a penalty in Euro 2016, as Austria drew 0-0 with Portugal. Newsed-up, I read a bit about Tallinn, which oddly appears in our Scandinavia guidebook, then dropped off, waking as the rain eased.

Russian orthodox church in Tallinn

Ju arranged today for us to meet Richard and Jenny in the old town square, as they’re in the other campsite in Tallinn. Finding them, we aborted a first attempt at food in the square, as none of our wallets fancied the place. In another corner of the same square we sat down at the weird-est little place: III Draakon. A menu-less, candle-lit cave of a thing. Placing your order, having guessed what was one offer from the other folks packing the place out, the lass running the show effortlessly up-sells you on everything! A couple of comedic-large ox ribs, a pint of dark ale and a glass of wine came to €28. We laughed our way through the lot of it, listening to Richard’s cracking tales of learning to sail in Turkey before crossing the Bay of Biscay and then over the Atlantic.

Ox rib, beer and good company – what else would you want? Oh, a gherkin, you need a gherkin too

Ju read the other day five ships turned up on the same day in Tallinn, gridlocking the place with the fleet of coaches needed to move thousands upon thousands of people around. Today there were only two, so traffic flowed and away from the main hotspots you could get a look at the place without photo-bombing your way about town. That said, at a viewpoint I turned to find a camera, and then an elbow in my face as I tried to inch my way backwards.

Market square, Tallinn

Street scene, Tallinn

Cruise ships are well catered for in Tallinn. There’s an international airport too so cruises can start or finish here

Tallinn – an ancient port and a rather pretty place. The new town outside the walls rapidly starts to look like any city in Western Europe the further out you get

Tour group arriving at a view point in Tallinn. American, Germany and far-eastern (ahem – I have no idea where they were from) voices abounded and suddenly you can’t see the view

After a short walk about town, we headed for home, walking the few km feeling queasy from all the meat and needing the loo. Richard had used the one in the Draakon, but we chose not to after he inferred it had a special aroma to it, and that he’d not wanted any part of him to touch anything in there, including the soles of his shoes… Our ferry to Helsinki sails tomorrow morning, and we figured it would do Charlie good to get a few miles under his paws so he’ll sleep through the 3 hour crossing. As we walked we agreed our favourite Baltic capital was Vilnius – small, cosy and we could park safely close to the centre, followed by Tallinn and finally Riga. A fair assessment? Who knows – that’s just how it worked out for us.

The walk along the Baltic Sea back to the campsite. Ju’s facing Russia, maybe 3 hours away by car. To her left is Finland, 3 hours away by ferry

Charlie’s paws didn’t last the full 3 miles walk home!

Swans in the Baltic. Seems strange to see them in the sea and not a freshwater lake. Signs tell you not to feed them

Now we just need to work out which terminal we sail from, how we declare Charlie when we arrive, where we’ll stay in Helsinki (we have a few options), how we’ll look about the capital (cities aren’t high up on my ‘things to see before I die’ list at the moment). After Helsinki I’ve petitioned the Team Zagan Destinations Committee to make a trip to the World Wife Carrying Championship at the start of July. Outcome of this petition is yet to be minuted, watch this space.

Charlie thinks all his Christmases have come at once with the ox rib.

A few more piccies from Tallinn before I go grab a beer (I’ve resorted to making the Polish 7.2% lager into shandy so I can drink it without pickling my eyeballs. The lemonade costs roughly the same as the beer did).

No, no idea what to write here

30% of Estonian alcohol goes to the Finns who come over on good old fashioned booze cruises.

Boris Yeltsin took some serious risks to help Estonia split from the USSR without the tanks rolling in

Once again, words fail me

Maybe if I took a tour I’d know what this is.

Door of the day.

The goat’s wooden mouth clapped open and closed while the chap inside whined and yammered. Go figure!

Soviet architecture in Tallinn. Was it any worse than the stuff built in 1960’s Britain?

Cheers, Jay

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