Wednesday 20th August , Tallinn, Estonia We took the ferry yesterday afternoon for the two hour crossing from Helsinki to Tallinn. The ship, in common with other Scandinavian ferries, was huge compared to those crossing the English Channel. Loading though leaves something to be desired and is as chaotic as we found it down in Greece. It's really unnerving for Modestine having a burly Estonian seaman gesticulating and shouting at her when she really cannot work out at all where he wants her to go β backwards, forwards, this lane or that.
She ended up squashed between a couple of Russian and Lithuanian freight lorries feeling like an ant between a couple of large elephants. Roads are appreciably worse in Estonia, rough and bumpy with raised manhole covers. Ian is delighted about this though as many are old Soviet ones with Cyrillic letters on.
Expect to be bored with a picture before the end of this blog. The rest will eventually be on his special manhole miscellany blogsite. Ferry port seen from near the campsite, Tallinn Didn't keep you waiting long did he? Russian manhole cover, Tallinn We found the campsite along beside the sea. It looks like a battered shunting yard wedged in between a couple of huge metal and concrete hangers and several blocks of flats.
There are notices warning us not to leave anything outside at night and a few desultory tents pitched on the overgrown scruffy vegetation that passes for grass to one side of the tarmac. There are clean, indoor showers and loos however, and even a non-functioning sauna β though somewhere to wash dishes might have been more use. We'd collected the information from the internet before leaving England as we know accommodation will be difficult over here.
It claimed to have wifi but doesn't. Arriving in the city last night during rush hour we headed straight out of town, swept along with the flow. It meant we arrived with no Estonian money β Krons, and there is nowhere except the city centre to find a cash machine.
