IF IT'S TUESDAY, IT MUST BE TALLIN

We were up at 8:00 this morning and had our breakfast at 9:00. Eggs Benedict this time and they were wonderful.

I accompanied them with a big bowl of fresh fruit .... the perfect breakfast. We have to be at a meeting at 12:45 so I don't know if we'll have an opportunity to feed our faces again before our tour or just have a light snack (as if we really need to eat!)
The light snack turned out to be a hot dog on the Lido deck by the pool. Even though it's not my favorite place on the ship to eat, it's usually good and always quick.

I'm sure that you think my blog is mainly a food fest, but since both Frank and I love to eat, I seem to always have a camera handy and photograph a lot of our meals. This must sound a bit quirky, but then so am I!

We took a bus into Tallin, Estonia and went on a city tour of both the upper and lower town.

The old town was a walled city and the history behind it was very interesting. It lies on the northern coast of Estonia on the Gulf of Finland. The city is an important industrial, political and cultural center and seaport.

The lower town area is one of the best preserved old towns in Europe and the authorities are continuing its rehabilitation.

Major sights include Town Hall square, the town walls and towers and St Olaf church tower. Whenever I hear about St. Olaf, I always think about Betty White and her character in the TV series, The Golden Girls. That's where she claims to be from in that role and she always makes me giggle when she tells the stories about where she is from adn the people there.

I toured the Lower part of the city and let Frank climb up to the upper part. My poor old back can just do so much in a day.

After touring part of the old city, we went to the square and watched the people.

We saw these lovely dogs being walked by their mistress. She told us that people were always taking photographs .. not of her, but of her dogs. I thought they were Pyranese but my daughter-in-law said that they were not. I'm not sure what breed they are but they were beautiful.

From there we went to an open air museum for tea and a concert. It was actually a replica of an old village and was representative of the way that the Estonians lived many years ago.

It reminded me a little of Log Cabin Village in Fort Worth but was much better preserved. We had a special cake that they had baked for us along with tea out of doors in the cool climate in a lovely picnic area,

and then listened to a folk music concert on ancient instruments and watched the dancers as they performed in ancient costumes. It was very interesting as well as entertaining.

I had no idea that thatched roofs were so popular in so many parts of the world.

I had always related them to England, but here they are also in Estonia. They're really fascinating and are still used in current day building in rural areas all over Europe.

They even have scarecrows to keep away unwanted birds. Things are the same everywhere!

This lovely old woman still lives in the village and had such an interesting face that I couldn't resist capturing her image on film.

As soon as she spied my camera, she scurried into her house, but I was fortunate enough to get this one shot before she left.

We returned to the ship around 5:00 (we always do) just in time to go to the Ocean Bar for a cocktail.

We then returned to our stateroom and fell promptly to sleep. If Jack hadn't called we would have probably slept through dinner!
After dinner we went to the show in the Queens Lounge and were in bed by 11:00. We will lose another hour tonight so it was actually midnight.
We will be in St. Petersburg tomorrow for 2 days. I'm really looking forward to our visit!

XOXO, Pcasso