Tallinn oh Tallinn

Ach Tallinn. I had such high expectations. Maybe that was the problem.

Ronja and I were here ages ago and had a lot of fun. Great food, great weather, beautiful atmosphere in the city, pub crawl, puke crawl - everything you could wish for...

As a small family, we experience the city completely differently and I am very torn. The city is beautiful, the weather is good, but the spark just doesn't ignite.

We arrive relatively early from Helsinki and drive to our 'campsite'. Until we arrive at the door, we are unsure if it will be anything at all. What comes next can best be described as bizarre. In the middle of a normal residential street, about 20 minutes walk from the old town, lives a woman around 50 years old (probably Polish), who has turned her garden and courtyard into a campsite.

With a rooftop terrace, kitchen, showers... You can even pick berries in the beautifully landscaped garden. Super delicious. It's a shame that the owner seems rather cool and aloof. Otherwise, this would be a real gem. Oh, and a shower for up to 15 people is not exactly ideal. But her husband is already working on a solution.

Well then. We stay for 3 nights and are happy that everything is fenced in and Henry can run around a bit.

We arrive calmly and in the afternoon we take our first stroll in the city. We just let everything sink in.

As soon as we arrive at Town Hall Square, Henry indulges in his new hobby. Eating stones. I don't know what that's all about, but no matter which city we are in, as soon as we take him out of the buggy (big thanks to my parents for this fantastic travel gift), he takes a few steps, then kneels down, picks a stone out between the cobblestones and puts it in his mouth.

The first time we picked it out, but now we just let him do it. Maybe he's looking for an international flavor. Who knows.

Just thought I'd mention it.

It's crowded in Tallinn and the city center consists mainly of cobblestone streets, the old city wall, souvenir and Estonian handicraft shops, restaurants and bars.

Long live tourism. We are tourists ourselves, but this city feels like it's being overrun by tour groups. At times, you just follow the crowd. It's pretty overwhelming and on the first day, Henry completely loses it and screams through the city, echoing off the walls. We escape to our garden and let the day come to an end.

The weather couldn't be better. Sun and temperatures between 18 and 25 degrees. That's the way to live.

But tomorrow it's supposed to rain, so we use that as an excuse to just hang out in the garden, chat with people, and let life pass by.

However, it doesn't rain at all until the afternoon, so we still wander into the city. We visit the artist district, stroll through the old alleys without a plan, and end up in a vegan restaurant where Ole eats the best burger of all time.

We are so impressed that we go back to have dinner here the next day. Henry drinks half a glass of beetroot juice with celery and apple, is cheerful, and charms the entire staff.

We spend the next day completely in the city. We carry the child and buggy up what feels like 500 steps to the city hill to enjoy the view. Many Asians want to take photos of Henry here. But we don't want that. So we carry everything back down. Groaning.

Let's start with some pancakes at Kompressor.

We need to burn that off, so we go to one of the newer neighborhoods in Tallinn to see something different and buy Henry a pair of sandals.

That works out perfectly. On the way there, Henry falls asleep and Ole and I go into the shoe shops with the sleeping child, select possible sandals, and then sit in the sun in a park for almost 1.5 hours, chatting and observing people, while the child briefly wakes up and then falls asleep again. Beautiful.

When Henry wakes up, we put on 2 pairs of sandals and buy one of them. The boy has already 'grown' a shoe size. Scary.

Now we need some new reading material, which we find in a second-hand bookstore.

One final stop at the bakery where we buy half a loaf of bread for 40 cents, which continues to confuse us to this day, and then off to dinner.

Tomorrow we will continue along the coast. But only a short distance. The weather is supposed to be fantastic.