tallinn - 7 july - 3 - city museum

 These are the awards the city museum has received. Some of them. 

That's right... Tallinn was (and is today) home to the Brotherhood of the Black Heads. Feels weird, doesn't it. 

I love this kind of stuff, as you will see in the next few days, if you didn't know already. 

I thought I took about one million pictures in this museum but apparently I hardly took any. We'll all manage. I have my memories, you don't need to know. 

tallinn 7 july - 2

 

The market by the railway station. I don't know whether it's a late C20 revival of something that was there previously and bulldozed by the USSR but in any case it does have an old time feel even though it started in, I think, 1993. 

The whole upstairs is dedicated to Antiik so you can imagine that really got me going, though as it transpired it wasn't at all cheap antiik. Unless you want some old soviet era badges for €2 which as it happens I really do, for some absurd reason.

One thing in here, I bought for Laura. If you can guess which it is, there's no 'if', it's none of your business unless you're Laura in which case I hope you like it. 

I can't remember who it was I was communicating with in the last couple of days and I said Estonia was incredibly intellectual and cultured and sent this as proof, ha ha. 

I could also have supplied these images to overegg that meaningless pudding.

I don't think these images are AI... but AI has kind of spoiled the fun of things like this hasn't it

This (below) is probably AI too - not a real bird.

So much to see and do in Tallinn. Everything is worth photographing. 

Remember the first incarnation of Alan Partridge where he was a useless sport commentator who would just say 'did you see that? did you see that!' etc. 

This is old towny stuff and below just intrigued me because of the evidence of old building features that have been allowed to (or made to) be retained on the wall. I don't quite get what the thinking is here. I don't hate it though. 

'Did you see that! Did you see that!'

Below is one of many buildings that has spooked me a bit while I've been here, because it kind of tips towards the street. I mean as if after centuries it's been waiting for me to come past to fall on. But I wouldn't even know if that happened. 

Bit scaly this one

Ok then we went to the City Museum so I think I'll make that another post. 

tallinn 7 july

Above - weird stone buildings the purpose of which is not clear to me. Below - big stone end. 

Below - this probably isn't even what Tallinn in the main is like, but we only have a few days and this is the prevailing impression you get. 

I certainly don't dislike it.

So this is where I was going at 8am this morning - to get the coffee. It's always to get the coffee. 

More soon as they say. 

6 july travel to and in tallinn

Next leg of the journey. Ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn on Monday 6 July. Met with good friends Franziska and Steve at the ferry terminal and we travelled in comfort and style alongside a billion other randos to Tallinn.

So an element of Estonian housing at least in this part of town and this era (um - the interwar independence era I think?) was wooden houses/apartment blocks with brick elements. It takes some getting used to. 

But having said that (and not really illustrated it at all because those are just a couple of pictures as we walked to our digs) there is quite a bit of variety.

Ok so see below the brick in the sandwich, someone said that was a fire transference prevention measure.

Here's an amazing place you'll never get over. It's like Cuba. As I imagine Cuba. I mean, a building that might be in Cuba. 

Amazing

OK the above probably are every tourist's typical photography but this doubles down on that...

But how could I not?! 

Right up from where the above picture was taken, someone has, um stencilled? I don't actually know how they did it, but some graffiti? 

It says ''I discovered/yourself/from dreaming/of moments/, what/now/okay/in hand' or actually probably more accurately, 'I found myself dreaming of moments that are now here'. 

Old town is old

If these walls could speak, they'd tell of holding up a lot of dirt for centuries, exhausting. 

I don't feel good about the way these balconies are constructed, but I suppose they're stable. 

It's just a bit scary, you know? 

I suppose I will cave in to your demand to see some more houses:

Sometimes, some houses/apartment blocks are set back behind other houses. I don't get it but that's how it is. More soon! 

6 july a dog on the bus in tampere

This was a dog on the bus in Tampere, as I went to the station. 

Good-bye Tampere! You still got it! 

 

tampere - still! - but now on the 6 july

 This is the adorable airbnb place I got for these two days in Pispala/Tampere. Loved it. 

The, er, foyer I suppose. 

I decided to do an early morning walk to the other lake (Villilänsalmi) just to see it's still there, and so I set out up those demon stairs again.

I had looked in this free stuff cupboard the day before so I didn't bother doing it again. It had little jumpers in it and some books in Finnish. Fine but not for me. 

This is a kind of hippy cafe I've been to in the past and liked it but it wasn't open of course at sparrow fart. Possibly not open at all any more - hard to be sure. Below is its backyard. Another free stuff cupboard btw, once again with things I didn't need. 

Don't know what happened here but it looks psychedelic. 

See? Free shop. I don't know. Here is a demonstration of my assessment of things I didn't need. Why did I even photograph this?! 

Anyway so at a certain point, there comes a path in a park and you creep down it and you feel like you're far away from everything, even though you're probably really not. 

You know possibly I could have stolen one of these boats, come over all Snufkin and got out into Villilänsalmi and got completely in trouble. Yet I had a train to catch. 

You may not be able to see it but there is a really pissed off duck in the picture below who I disturbed and who swam away. Here it is still swimming away. 

So that was my Villilänsalmi moment. Oh, and also this was such a moment too...

Whoever lives here can have such moments all day, every day. 

Ok so on returning - back up and down those fucking steps - I saw that someone had seen fit to cut out and seal in plastic a cartoon where someone in a weird little hat has seen fit to treat a car crash victim with acupuncture. Is that funny? Why is it here?! 

Got to be good for you...

More soon