Estonia

I visited Estonia for the first time in August 1990. After almost 35 years, I visited it again, this time with my son Alasdair, for 9 nights and 10 days at the end of May and beginning of June, 2025. We stayed 3 x 3 nights in: Tallinn, on the island of Hiiumaa, and the island of Saaremaa. This is a pictoral account of what we saw.

Tallinn

Accommodation. We stayed at the CityBox. For me, this is ideal. Rooms are adequate, clean and modern: a bed, a desk, a chair, a place to hang some clothes. There are also en-suite facilities. No luxury. I especially liked the textures of the walls, including the ceramics, and the floors. The artwork is less impressive. In terms of service, robots and computers do what they can, while people do what is beyond today’s computerized assistants. With a booking code it takes seconds to check in and to receive a key-card. Checking out is even faster, the key-card is inserted and in less than two seconds, it says one is checked out, and keeps the card.

After settling in, we visited a local shopping centre, which was more upscale than this old man is used to, with restaurant prices exceeding those in Norway. In the end, we ate at the local Hesburger fast-food joint. This is a Finnish chain we encountered last year in Vaasa, where we also stayed in something resembling a city box. It offered adequate food. However, I did notice that I was the oldest person in the establishment. Alasdair was the second oldest. The two next days we ate dinner at the Tallinn Kebob and Pizza establishment, eating kebab one night, and pizza the next.

The first morning was spend visiting Tallinn’s oldest tourist trap, the old town. It was much as I remember it, but the market stalls seem to have disappeared. In 1990, these offered quaint merchandise for sale. The street artists still exist, but the cost of a portrait has increased at least twenty times.

We stopped for coffee at Caffeine, with its orange decor. Outside, it offered drinking water for passing dogs, and waste bins for passing humans. Later, I discovered it was owned by Reitan Convenience Estonia AS, which is part of the Reitan group, located in Trondheim, just 120 km down the road from Cliff Cottage. This is the second time I have been impressed by a Reitan group company. The first time was many years ago in Bergen when some incident occurred with details disremembered, when I was at the Northland cafe, and the staff looked after everything professionally. I vowed to go back, and I have.

Street art. As a ruralist, I avoid spending time in cities. However, they are a good place to find street art, including buildings that pretend to be works of art.

The Seaplane Harbour Museum. Some think the museum is misnamed, it is actually a maritime museum. there is only one seaplane housed in the museum, but many more boats of various sizes, including a Detroit News (DN) class ice boat. At Vangshylla, I have blue prints for it, but have never built one. The largest vessel on display is the 59.5 m long submarine EML Lembit, which was moored just off the Hotel Sport, when I first visited Tallinn in 1990.

Due to Moscow’s lack of large body of water, the sailing events for the 1980 Summer Olympics were held in Tallinn. A huge complex was built for the task at Pirita. This state of the art complex was where I stayed in 1990. Today it has seen better days, with most of the complex abandoned.

Hiiumaa

In Estonia, the domestic ferry fleet is unusual. Ship hulls are painted in distinctive colours. We crossed to Hiuumaa on the red-hulled Tiiu. From Muhu, connected by causeway to Saaremaa, we returned to the mainland on the orange-hulled Piret. Both ships are 114 m long, carrying up to 150 cars and 700 passengers. Altogether there are four such ferries. The ferry between Hiuumaa and Saaremaa is smaller. The SoeIa is 45 m long, carrying 32 cars and 200 passengers. All the ferries mentioned here are iceclass 1A, allowing them to navigate through ice up to 1 meter thick. This is important because the Baltic Sea is the world’s largest brackish water basin = lots of ice, in the winter.

Soviet authorities were concerned about foreign spies. So, I never had a chance to visit the islands of Hiiumaa and Saaremaa in 1990. That situation has changed now, and we visited both. Hiiumaa is the more restful of the two. Few would describe Saaremaa as bustling, but there is more action, comparatively.

One of my interests involves village swings, found in Finland and Estonia. At one time these were built more like ferris wheels, with four seats providing vertical motion. A photo of one of these will appear in a post about Harry Palmer, to be published on 2025-11-11. One of these can be seen in the film, The IPCRESS file (1965). These older village swings seem to have been replaced with less dangerous models, as shown above.

There are older lighthouses than Kõpu, including: one at Alexandria built c. 280 – 247 BCE, that no longer exists; the Tower of Hercules in Spain c. 2nd century CE, that still exists; the Lighthouse at Genoa, originally built in 1128 (or 1161) with its tower rebuilt in 1543; the Hook lighthouse in Ireland, built c. 1201 – 1240. After this comes Kõpu. Rather than fighting with others about, which is the oldest in terms of continuous operation, younger lighthouse enthusiasts may want to visit at least three: Genoa in 2028 to celebrate 900 years of operation; Kõpu in 2031 to celebrate 500 years of operation; Hook in 2040 to celebrate 800 years of operation. For information about old lighthouses see this website.

Saaremaa

For me, Saaremaa was a totally different place, contrasting with Hiiumaa. The accommodation featured a windmill, where we slept. In addition there was a table sheltered from the rain with a roof, but no walls. Beyond that there was a building that housed the kitchen, shower and sauna. Further away, there was an outhouse and a woodshed. So now, staying in a windmill has been checked off on my bucket list.

In my old age, I distinguish countries on the basis of one essential quality = trust. Estonia impressed me positively in this regard. At the border post museum, featuring artifacts from the Soviet period, there were several ways to pay for admission, including cash. There were a couple of hundred kroner of Euros sitting on a table, at the un-personed museum entrance, to provide change for people wanting to pay in cash. Coffee or tea was included in this entrance fee. When we took our coffee break, there was a pair of swallows enjoying the area.

In terms of national symbols, the cornflower = rukkilill (Centaurea cyanus) is the national flower of Estonia. It has been grown there for over 10 000 years. The barn swallow = Suitsupääsuke (Hirundo rustica) is its national bird. The wolf = hunt (Canus lupus) is its national animal. The Baltic Herring = läänemere heeringas (Clupea harengus membras) is its national fish, and a staple of the Estonian diet. The Swedish fermented delicacy, Surströmming, is made from the same species.

Leaving Saaremaa, we travelled across a causeway to the island of Muhu. Here we visited yet another Soviet military site. Yet, once again, it included some natural history. Here we could learn about the size of bird boxes preferred by different species.

Note: Thank you, Alasdair, for taking me on this trip. I flew down to Oslo from Trondheim on 2025-05-23, where I met Alasdair at the airport. He had flown in from Stavanger. We then overnighted at his house, then returned to the airport early. We flew to Copenhagen and then on to Tallinn. On our return on 2025-06-02, we took the same flight from Tallinn to Arlanda airport in Sweden. From there, Alasdair took a flight back to Oslo, while I took a later flight to Trondheim. Trish met me at the airport, and drove me back to Vangshylla.