Table Of Contents
Vesal and I managed to coordinate, and I found a slot in my schedule, for a visit to Tartu in early May. Europe is sort of close to eastern North America: closer than New Zealand for sure, anyway. The constraint was “before Canadian Nationals and after exams”. Fortunately, it was satisfiable, though apparently later would have been better for the Estonians, but not for me.
I’d arranged this travel so that I’d spend a few days in Montréal before going to Estonia. My flight was from Montréal to Tallinn (via Paris) and then from Tallinn back to Toronto (via Amsterdam). So, after three days in Montreal, including seeing the parents and visiting the bouldering gyms, it was off to Tallinn. (The Plateau Mont-Royal is indeed pretty urban, and, yes, bigger than Wellington. Maybe it’d be nice to live there one day, but Québec politics is complicated.)
This was the first time I’d been to Europe since late 2019 (Greece, for OOPSLA), so I was looking forward to that.
YUL-CDG-TLL, May 2
The 747 bus to YUL was packed. Fortunately, I was mostly travelling light, though I had packed my lighter travel judogi, which I’d use in Montréal and Tartu. Still, I had two backpacks (40L and 26L).
As usual for flying to Europe, it’s an evening departure from North America arriving early in the morning in Europe, and then transferring to a mid-day arrival at the ultimate destination.
The layover was only 2.5 hours, but I had to take the shuttle around Terminal 2. (I tried hard to walk from 2C to 2B, which is not far but also apparently impossible.) Also I had to get some food. First-world problems to be sure, but since I was flying Air Baltic from CDG to TLL, I’d have no lounge access at Paris CDG. So I got a wholly unremarkable sandwich. Per the reviews, people don’t like the food at CDG. Even if it’s in France.
A further 3 hours on Air Baltic got me to TLL at 1pm. The weather was favourable and the distance was 4km, so this walk was possible, and I walked to my (budget but serviceable) hotel, Villa Kadriorg, where I’d stay for two nights.
The weather got a bit rainier but not a downpour, and I continued walking to the old town, aiming in particular for the Aleksander Nevski katedraal. One might think it looks somewhat Russian, but it’s still a key tourist attraction.
One reason that I do airport walks is to see what the infrastructure is like. YYZ loses badly, while, say, GVA is excellent. TLL is walkable on sidewalks but there are stroady bits and huge malls near the airport. Comparable to the LHR walk, but Tallinn is smaller, so the distance is less. As I got closer to the centre the streets became less stroady and there were more old buildings showing up, made of wood, brick, or stone (rather than concrete).
Getting to the old town, things looked medieval, a big part of their marketing, with Vikings playing a role as well. It’s somewhat like Old Montreal, but a few centuries older, and with more castles, and buildings made of stone (also true of Montreal). The centre is closed to cars and there are lots of people walking around. Touristy, of course, but it seems to work as a place for tourists.
The katedraal is opposite the Parliament, on top of the hill. It also had an Orthodox service at the time, which I went in to listen to, but of course I didn’t understand anything, and pictures weren’t allowed.
The lighting wasn’t the best and the good pictures were from subsequent days.
I had pizza for dinner, but the place that had good reviews on Google was actually the pizza place next door, not the fast-food pizza place I walked into. Oh well.
Tartu, and the parts of Tallinn I went to, were small enough that I mostly walked around. Sometimes I took transit in Tallinn, and sometimes I took the e-kick-scooters in Tartu, rather than a 30 minute walk.
Birds and Old Tallinn, May 3
Estonia’s marketing, like New Zealand’s, also involves a lot of nature. I didn’t really have capacity to plan logistics for a hike, even though some surprisingly long hikes are possible in this small country. I did have capacity to go on a half-day bird tour with Marko, where we saw lots of birds and I learned about Estonian society from a different perspective (the perspectives being: at universities, from Marko, and from the book).
We went around in his car and saw a lot of seabirds, as well as some treebirds. There were also thousands of migrating geese in a field. I had no target species, since European birds are all new to me. (I did have, like, 3 European birds in my photo archives, none of which were good). Chiffchaffs? What’s that? Terns, fieldfares, storks, etc; we saw over 50 species in all.
One interesting thing that Marko mentioned was that the average Estonian teenager had a more clear-eyed view of Russia than the average Western politician. Seems true to me. Also, he said that Russia had tried to invade Estonia 34 times.
After the bird tour, I had a chance to go to the old town again and get better pictures of the katedraal (better conditions, better light, less tired). Marko also recommended Rataskaevu 16 and it was truly excellent. It is also highly reviewed on the Internet but does not seem to be resting on its laurels.
Tallinn to Tartu, May 4
Pretty chill day. The train takes two hours. Breakfast at NOP Cafe (shakshouka), then the tram to the train station, then cheburek at Samsa at the train station, then train and a walk from the train station to Hotell Dorpat. The Tartu train station is not in the centre. Despite Karoliine having told me that nothing is really far in Tartu, it’s still a half-hour walk from the train station to the hotel. Saw some birds along the way and got to the hotel, which was pretty standard, but had a non-stellar view, of the bus station. The bus is much more central for the hotel than the train!
Tartu visit, May 5 – 9
The weather was sunny and not very warm for the whole week I was in Tartu (May at 58°N, I guess). So, early the first morning, I went to go look for some birds near the cathedral ruins. My fingers actually got really cold after a while, so I left. There were fieldfares, hooded crows, a great tit, feral pigeons, starlings, and perhaps a European pied flycatcher.
The other visit to a place with birds was the Peetri Cemetary a few days later, in the afternoon, as recommended by Marko. I didn’t manage to figure out (paying for) the city bus in Tartu, so I rented an e-kick-scooter to get there. There were also some interesting memorials in the cemetary, but in terms of birds, there were mostly the same birds as the other day, but also a fieldfare nest with a baby, a crow, a blackbird, and some common wood pigeons.
I also went to the Tartu bouldering gym. There is also a roped gym next door, but I had no partner. Not huge, but some interesting problems, and many people. Self-service admission, pay on their webpage.
Rounding out the non-academic activities, I visited judo practice. It seemed to be some sort of regional training. The kids were strong.
One morning, Karoliine also did the tour guide thing and showed me around the highlights of Tartu. It’s a small town. Even smaller than Kitchener-Waterloo. It’s less spread out, and I think one can walk from one end to the other in 1 or 1.5 hours. The malls are all together, and there are also historic buildings in the old town. There’s also a river, and many bridges across it.
The Dorpat was pretty central to the mall part of Tartu and right above the bus station (that was the view out of my window). There was a pretty decent selection for breakfast but 5 days of breakfast with the same food is a bit much! I also did a bird count every day walking by the river from Dorpat to the Delta, a 10-minute walk.
Professionally, it was good to spend a week checking out what was going on in Tartu. A bunch of stuff. I went to a thesis defense, gave some comments on an industrial-outreach talk by Vesal, talked to people, and thought about future plans. Good intellectual exposure to another environment, though not as intense (i.e. more sustainable) than going to a conference.
- Pictures: Tartu, mostly Ronmistehaus bouldering, May 8
- Pictures: Tartu, birds in Peetri cemetary, and churches, May 8
- Pictures: Tartu, mostly Delta Centre, May 9
Southern Estonia, May 10
Karoliine had planned an excursion around Southern Estonia. We all met up at Delta and then set off to see some classic Estonian bogs; the highpoint of Estonia; and the watchtower Pesapuu.
First, Meenikunno. We drove through the countryside, and then had a nice hike on a loop through the bog, with boardwalks as appropriate. There were some people on the trails, but not a huge amount. There was also an observation tower and a lake. The lake had some common goldeneyes, and we ran into some fungi hunters who pointed out some false morels. Also, there was a nice looking hut. Nice, easy walk (8km, mainly flat: it is a bog, after all!).
I’d requested to go to the Estonian highpoint, Suur Munamägi. It’s not very high, at 318m above sea level. It’s also my first country highpoint, somehow. I’m not Eric Gilbertson. I have been to a number of state and province highpoints, but have never managed to make it to a country highpoint. Eric has been to this one, of course, and not up the tower, since he was there at night. I also did not go up the tower.
We had lunch at the egg restaurant Suur Muna. It’s a total tourist trap, but actually quite good, probably because people go there with locals, so it’s not a one-off destination. I had the wild boar. Yum! There was also, like, a 5 year old helping run the restaurant.
Finally, it was off to the Pesapuu observation tower, 30m, where we could get a view over the countryside. They’d also done some practical anthropology experiments a few years ago, living for some weeks in ancient houses. The houses were still there. They don’t look super comfortable.
I also learned that in Estonia, there is a superstition that pointing at a stork results in getting a baby.
After that, it was back to Tartu, where I took the bus to Tallinn. The seats on the bus are more comfortable, I guess, but I still prefer trains. But the bus does leave from a more convenient place. Both the bus and the train stop at Tallinn airport, where I had a two-night reservation just nearby.
Back to Tallinn, May 11, and to Canada, May 12
The Tallinn airport Mercure was actually quite nice and had a better view of a fountain, a river, and a parking lot, rather than just a parking lot. I think the more expensive rooms at Dorpat also had a good view of the river, but that’s not what I got. Anyway, it was really pretty at sunset from the Mercure. I also saw a bunch of terns in Tallinn between the airport and the hotel.
Tallinn and Tartu both have a bunch of malls. I guess it’s dark and cold for a lot of the year. I got something from the supermarket on Saturday night, and excellent dumplings at the mall on Sunday, when I had a bit of a later start.
I finally finished the somewhat depressing Estonia book just before leaving Estonia.
I did have all day in Tallinn on Sunday, and visited the Linnahall, which the tourist bureau calls an architectural gem. Well, there’s a lot of concrete. I also watched birds for a bit, though I didn’t have the good lens with me, just the point-and-shoot. People do go to fish at Linnahall, which is on the water, and hence where the 1980 Olympic sailing happened.
I also visited the Museum of Photography. They had old cameras but also exhibitions that were very much not G-rated, as it turns out. Not really what they would talk about in public in Soviet days.
The flight back to Canada on Monday morning had a 1 hour delay at TLL, but fine. Going back to Canada from Europe is pretty easy; in this case there was a connection at AMS, and since I was connecting to Air Canada I could grab some food at the lounge there. The Internet has stale information about non-Schengen Star Alliance lounges, but they are running now.