Todays adventure was an extra which I was not sure we would manage to fit in. It was an early rise and fairly quick breakfast before a taxi to the Viking Ferry port for a 10.30am sailing to Tallinn in Estonia. We had to be there over an hour early for some reason and took a taxi as the black ice we battled with yesterday would have hampered a speedy walk.
Check in was easy and surprisingly there were a lot of people already waiting with suitcases and small trolleys which only later on became clear why people had them. Following the Finnish queueing system in that there wasn’t one, I raced on as soon as the gates opened and went to deck 7 to find a table and chairs by the window. It was at this point we realised the trip was so much more than a simple return journey to Tallinn. Despite only being 10:30am people hit the bar immediately and then the bingo and karaoke started which continued for the rest of the journey. Unbelievable - we’ve not seen anything like it before and probably won’t again. It turns out that this is basically a booze cruise for the Finns who obviously find their alcohol as expensive as we do. Their main aim was to get drunk on the journey and then buy as much drink as possible either on the ship or at supermarkets in the Port when they arrived which is where the trolleys and suitcases come in as they are filled with bottles, crates and cans of booze.
It seemed much longer than 2 1/2 hours! It was amazing seeing the frozen sea in all different patterns on route though.
We eventually arrived at Tallinn and walked our way carefully up to the old city centre. It really is a pretty city with pastel coloured houses dating back to late 15th century. We only had four hours in the city including the time in which we had to return to the ship so we only had time for a quick look around and a quick lunch in an excellent restaurant - traditional Estonian food. Today’s photo is of an ice rink in the middle of the old town, I don’t think it was built specially I think it was just an area that freezes over during the winter.
The return journey was as noisy as the outbound journey as unfortunately our chairs were closer to the stage this time. People seemed to be playing a strange version of ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire’ directed by a compere, interspersed with bits of music that sounded like a Benny Hill program!
Eventually we arrived back in Helsinki and this time walked our way back to the hotel around the harbour. As we were still quite full from lunch luckily Colin spotted a supermarket near to the hotel and we were able to buy ourselves a small dinner and also some paper plates and plastic cutlery a quarter of the price of last nights meal!
