I’m still in transit and am currently residing in a Travel Lodge just outside Bishop’s Stortford. I fly back to France at 7.10 am, which translates to me needing to be at the airport for five in the morning! Not looking forwards to that, to be sure, but its a tiny price to pay for the wonderful visit I have just had to see Finn and Janne in Tallinn.

Finn had an orchestral piece that he has written played here, btw #proudmother

Both Eden and Liam have also visited, and loved their visits, but I am harder to please, being considerably high maintenance! Before I write my blogs, I tend to do a list, so I don’t forget anything. Just to warn you, this time, I have quite a long list, so make a cup of tea, get comfortable! Right, here goes..

I LOVED it!!! What an amazing, vibrant, cultured, beautiful city! Lets start with the glamour of it all. Because its so cold, (-7 c in the day), everyone is wearing fur and look so dressed up. Every face is hidden under furry hoods, buried under fur hats and totally rock the Dr Zhivago vibe. Everyone looked smiley and cool and young and buzzy, even the old lady baboushkas. Here is my version of this look

Finn and Janne took me on a wonderful 2 day tour of this dynamic city. We first headed to Old Town, with its snow covered cobbled streets and turrets and pretty wooden houses:

The dove road blocks are everywhere, in different poses and the boys told me that Helsinki has the same idea, but turtles.

We walked up the ramparts and looked down over the city, towards the sea, which you can just spot, on the horizon.

Like France, Christmas hasn’t yet departed and the grey moroseness of the sky is cheered up by twinkly lights. You need this contrast to the gloom to lift your spirits.

We got around everywhere by trams, which run continuously, frequently and cheaply. A three day travel card costs €5 and you can go for miles and miles. We did a fair bit of walking too and down by the abandoned Soviet prison was stunning. Right next to it was a maritime museum:

You can walk on one of the boats and feel like a salty sea dog! The prison is a prime piece of real estate, but is currently boarded up and is covered in seditious graffiti

I got to see the frozen Baltic sea, which is a sight to behold

We stopped for a bit to watch the ducks sliding around:

If you are not a duck, its vital that you have regular cafe/restaurant/bar stops, just to keep warm. I didn’t realise how much of a foodie paradise Tallinn is! I was so excited by the imaginativeness of the places we ate in and freshness and healthiness of the food. If you were imagining beetroots, herrings and pickles, you are kind of right, but its lightly done, beautifully presented. Veganism is mainstream here too and we ate out at V, in a gnarly, wooden beam chocolate box of a restaurant. As an example, here is my starter, of mushroom, bean and parsnip dips:

All the flavours were bold and punchy and made me realise that France isn’t yet delivering for me on the gastro front. When you close your eyes in a quiet food ectasy, then you know you are encountering something special. A trip to the local pancake house was also delicious; poached salmon and cheese sauce is a fantastic hangover cure!

The bars are superb. Out of the corner of your eye you spot enticing, twinkly doorways leading to candle lit bars. Franks was a treat and had a gentle 50’s vibe, with cocktails to match, not a plastic giraffe to be seen anywhere:

We played cards in a club where you could only get in if you knew the code, hung out smolderingly in the Depeche Mode tribute bar and drank ice cold honey beer in a bar called Hell!

Tallinn has many faces. Its quite common to have a fantastic interior to a club or flat, but the outside looks nearly derelict and grim. But this dichotomy works and whole districts are regenerating in parts of the city that could have entopied beyond recovery, giving it an edgy feel. Here’s some magnificent wall art in an area of railway carriages and shipping containers that house art galleries and eateries and shops:

And then, as a complete contrast, here is a Romanov Palace, just down the road!

Inside, there’s an exhibition of Dutch art, including paintings by 17th century female artists, Katharina Treu and Angelika Kauffman. I only mention this because its much more commonplace to see male artists in history. By funny coincidence, I have just started reading The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt and she was talking about how the Dutch invented telescopes and its very common to see beautifully observed insects in Dutch paintings of this period, partly as a momento mori, but also because they could see them really close up and were fascinated. I particularly loved this glorious still life, where even the lemons look gilded with silver:

Catherine the Great looked rather spiffing in this portrait, I thought

and these two buccolic, lugubrious rascals caught my eye, too:

The palace is gorgeous, as you would expect, with these stunning stoves in each room

and please admire this incredibly ornate ceiling:

I kept peeping outside to check the snow was still there:

It was. And it was still there when we crisply walked down to the sea again, right up to the water’s edge:

Yep, it makes you shiver, just looking at this photo ,😱

I’ll end this special travel edition of my blog with a snow angel! Beer might have been involved.

Happily warming up in the TravelLodge,

Madame Becs 🤗