Tallinn

The cruise ship terminal in Helsinki was fairly close to my hotel, so it only took a 2 minute walk to the bus stop & a 5 minute bus ride to get there.  I got a great deal ($13) on the cruise from Helsinki to Tallinn & it was cheaper to buy a round trip ticket instead of a one way ticket.  I guess they assume you spend more in food, drinks, & gambling on a round trip.  It is only a 50 mile trip & takes about 2.5 hours to get to Tallinn from Helsinki.  The breakfast buffet was pretty good & actually cost slightly more than the cruise.  

View from the cruise ship of Tallinn

I had a 20 minute walk to my apartment from the Tallinn terminal.  The couple that I rented the apartment from were very nice & even brought over some cake for me the first night.  The apartment was a very spacious 1 bedroom place & at $50/night, it is what I would paid for a cheap hotel room in town.  Tallinn has a population of 450,000 people & Estonia overall has 1.3 million people.  The old town is really well preserved & was a 15 minute walk from the apartment.  

I did a 2 hour walking tour of old town on my 2nd day there & about halfway through the tour, 3 fighter jets flew overhead at a fairly low altitude.  I knew that it couldn't be a routine training exercise, it turns they were intercepting 2 Russian aircraft that were not supposed to be there.  The tour guide made a remark that Estonia was glad to be part of NATO, since they share a border with Russia.  

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/13/typhoon-jets-intercept-russian-planes-that-committed-act-of-aggression

The tour was pretty good & I took a ton of photos of old town during the day & my last night there. The weather did get a little chilly with the wind blowing in the evening, but it was still pretty nice.  

I did 3 runs in Tallinn, one along the Baltic Sea & two in a really nice park that was 1/4 mile from my apartment.  In the middle of my run in the park, I took a trail that went through a gravel parking lot of a big pink house.  As I got closer, I noticed a police car in the parking lot & 2 armed soldiers on the front porch.  I found out later it was the President's house.  I mentioned this to the guy I rented the apartment from & he was in the military at one time & said he did guard duty there. Apparently there are a couple of secret service guys at the windows in addition to other people outside.

President's house

Overall I had a good visit to Estonia & I am headed next to Riga, Latvia for 3 nights, which is a 4.5 hour bus ride from Tallinn.  Here are some more photos from my Tallinn visit.