Tallinn, Estonia
Definitely worth visiting!
The old city of Tallin is simply amazing. Overcrowded with tourists, but if you manage to overlook that, it`s really like a place taken out of a fairy tale, the medieval towers and houses, all incredibly well preserved. And lots of lovely arts and craft stores (hidden inbetween about a million souvernir shops, but still quite easy to find.)
We went to a SPA hotell for two days, which was great. Lots of really good SPA treatments at a fraction of what it would cost in Norway.
I was really fascinated by the combination of modernity and signs of an ex-communist country. For instance, there are wireless internet points at the most unlikely places, you can get online anywhere really (if you happen to have a laptop, which I don`t.) They`re building tall, modern buildings right next to the medieval towers. (not sure if I loved that though). And the cars in Tallin makes the general cars you see on Norwegian roads look ridiculously old and cheap. Seriously, not one of the cars there looked more than 3 years old, and most looked really expensive.
But then there are all the things that makes it clear this is an old communist country. Like the really ugly, large, grey appartment builidings everywhere. Most of the streets outside the old town seem polluted, worn down and crossing them as a pedestrian feels quite risky. Finding a place to eat outside the old city was really difficult, there were lots of places but most of them didn`t seem very nice and had a feeling of eating in the middle of a bussy, polluted intersections. But then, after walking on these not very nice streets for a while, you can get to a wonderful, well preserved tsar-palace. Or a very nice park.
It really was worth visiting. And, they are doing a lot of work on the city, there are new buildings being built absolutely everywhere (expet for the old city). It would be interresting to go back in 10 years and see what`s happening to the city.
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