Estonia Finland | FindPenguins

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Trip start
January 5, 2025
Estonia Finland Traveler
DIA FRA TLL travel circus
January 5 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ -5 °C
It starts out with Oliver and me on the train to DIA. Oliver flies Air France through Paris to Helsinki. I'm on Lufthansa, who has warned about travel delays and indeed my flight is delayed by an hour and a half and my connection is an hour and a half so it looks unlikely that I will be able to make it all the way. The plan to meet up in Helsinki is in jeopardy!

The check-in agent ressures me that they'll make up time during the flight. There are a lot of moving parts in that equation.

I sit with Oliver and he gets on board an Air France, A350 to Paris and then Helsinki. He does not have any delays so he'll be going on to Tallin on his own and checking into the hotel solo. I'm not sure where I'll end up.

I'm waiting in the Denver United club with a free pass munching on good food. At the gate I got called on the intercom and upgraded to 29A premium economy. It feels like first class.

We flew over Scotland and the peaks by the sea were covered in snow, it's a great sight and my first of Scotland. I visited the famous downstairs bathroom of the 4 engined Airbus A340 that will go out of service in about a year. I have Wi-Fi on board the flight and communicate with Oliver via text, I'm rebooked on Finnair and I won't make the ferry, he's on his own in a foreign land.

In Frankfurt I get lucky, I line up on what I think is a service counter but it's actually a gate where a rep is helping three people getting re-booked. He turns out to be a chief from the service center and when he hears my story he realizes he can save money by putting me from the Finnair onto a Lufthansa flight to Tallinn directly which turns out to be fairly empty. The landing was a greaser, not even a bump! As a result I arrived at the hotel just a few minutes before Oliver who took a completely different route to Helsinki and a ferry. This turned out to be a very very long day with incredibly long layovers at Denver and Frankfurt. Don't leave your phone charger in the outlet!Read more
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Estonia Finland Traveler
Tallinn architecture
January 7 in Estonia ⋅ ☁️ -1 °C
An overflow of photos of day 1
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Estonia Finland Traveler
Tallinn
January 7 in Estonia ⋅ ☁️ -1 °C
Tere is hello
Ai Tah is thank you

Fresh snow yesterday makes the scene a wintery fairy tale town with medieval architecture, castles and the city wall. It's a great ambiance for discovery of a new city. As the seat of government there are embassies, notably a consulate of Mongolia.

It's fun to hang with Oliver and share this experience. We visit the record store and find treasure in the bins of musical nostalgia. The enormous breakfast is good fuel for the expedition in the daylight which lasts until about 3:30pm. The stop to a second record store with coffee shop yields more records for Oliver whose collection is now over 100 records, a nice start. After a drop-off at the hotel we set out to find an early dinner in a nice restaurant. The jet lag is catching up. What a great start for us picture snapping tourists, even in January there are plenty who come here.Read more
TravelerGlad you are getting time with beloved Oliver.
1/7/25Reply
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Estonia Finland Traveler
Train Tallinn to Tartu
January 8 in Estonia ⋅ ☁️ 0 °C
We're having another great breakfast and a nice conversation. As we are walking to the train station the recent snow is starting to melt. The train we take continues to Riga and Vilnius connecting the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

In Tartu we check into to a nice hotel with comfy beds which are tempting on the jet lag. Grab the bus into town for a bite in a cafe with terrific soup. Walk around and we go ice skating on the Reaplats. It's only 4 pm, dark and it feels like 8pm. Then we dine in style at a fine Italian restaurant. The menu has dishes with fresh handmade cheese sourced from milk from a local dairy and in-house handmade pasta. The chef knows how to combine herbs and texture for an explosion of tastes in your mouth. It's truly excellent. A superb tiramisu tops it off.

Oliver let's the jet lag get the better if him, lucky him, I'm dealing with lose business ends deep into the night.Read more
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Estonia Finland Traveler
Tartu Toodledoo
January 9 in Estonia ⋅ ☁️ 1 °C
A bit waylaid on the laptop last night with a pernicious issue, which got resolved in the end but caused some tension resulting in lack of sleep. I can power through it though. A great Estonian breakfast again before we go into town to meet a last minute guide. The tour gets pushed back to 17:00 and we set out on our own. On top of the hill, which turns out to be the 5th highest hill in the entire country, we find an old church dating back to 1224. Destroyed and rebuilt partially many times it currently houses the university museum. Great variety of information showcasing the sciences and life in the past 400 or so years from the university perspective. So interesting that we spend a few hours there.

Snacks, a record store and back to the hotel. A third Dutch record for Oliver from me and some more in his own. He is going to have a listening feast.

After a quick drop off to the hotel we meet Stanislav for the tour, is lively, fun and informative. The town comes alive with human stories, such as the student jail escapades and foibles.

Nice dinner at a German restaurant for Schnitzel and a white beer. Slept well after that.Read more
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Estonia Finland Traveler
Tartu Train To Tallin
January 10 in Estonia ⋅ ❄️ 0 °C
Went for the veggies at breakfast to offset the onslaught of vacation foods at least a tiny bit. It's snowing lightly and it makes me want to go ski. We take the Uber to the station to avoid the slop. It's laptop time on the WiFi in the train while glancing at the foggy cloudy whiteout scenery.

Back in Tallinn, we brave the slop and walk and it is now a familiar place, we know our way around. The hotel is of the upper end boutique type, but the price is right. We're comfy and warm and spend some time in the room resting before we set out to the Tallinn concert hall for a performance by the national symphony of Sostakovits. Violin concerto No2 and his 4th symphony which didn't premier until 25 years after it was written due to Soviet repression. The lead violinist Isabella Faust was scintillating, The 4th was over the top explosive and have me much captivating pleasure. A night to remember.Read more
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Estonia Finland Traveler
Floating Ferry For Finland
January 11 in Estonia ⋅ ❄️ 0 °C
We continue our decadent streak at the fantastic breakfast buffet bar in the boutique hotel, everything exudes luxury here at a normal price. It's out if my normal wheelhouse but I enjoy it.

On the ferry we get a table and watch the water get churned by what must be enormous propellers. There is some swell in the Gulf of Finland. Time flies like this with Oliver.

Oliver leads the charge with his sim equipped cell phone and local knowledge as he was here a few days ago. The Helsinki hotel is conveniently located and also very nice. we settle in a bit and I start looking for entertainment for tonight. Many shows are already sold out but I find a performance by the symphony orchestra of three pieces by Andrew Lloyd Weber. So we are off to a bar for a quick meal and join a well dressed crowd in the Finish concert hall of Helsinki. It was a great and enjoyable performance. it's so great to share this with Oliver, he is a well versed young man who is on a great track. Proud father looking on.Read more
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Estonia Finland Traveler
Helsinki Ferris Ferry Fun
January 12 in Finland ⋅ ☀️ -6 °C
Nice to sleep in. Best breakfast of the trip and they were all outstanding. A walk to the record store yields another 7 special finds, some from Finland artists who we never heard of but they look promising.

The air turned cold but the sun is shining, though the angle at noon is a mere 10 degrees over the horizon. at 1:24 an hour after the solar high a shadow casts 7.6 times the height of an object. It hardly feels like it is mid day.

Walked from hotel to downtown area, the traditional reindeer soup was outstanding. Warmed up, we take a few rounds on the Ferris wheel and then with the ferry to Suomenlinna. The history of this island is fascinating in Baltic seafaring and wars between Sweden, Russia and Finland. Pizza for dinner and some pre-flight prep. The trip we looked forward to for 6 months comes to an end. It couldn't have been better. I got great one on one time with my son, this is one of those weeks that will stay with you forever.Read more
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Trip end
January 12, 2025