A different day, a different country, different rules. We had to prove vaccination last night but being unvaccinated wouldn’t have been a problem, it would just mean breakfast in our room. As it is here you get a time slot to avoid too much interaction, and all the food has to be covered up. The lovely receptionist is still on duty this morning and Brian is keen to know if Randolf needs feeding or would like a gentle stroking.. honestly .. he’s 77 FFS .. but only on the outside it seems ..
I’m sure I’m not alone.. I’m sure everyone does it .. sometimes I reach a perfect point on the planet at a perfect moment and I just wish I could share all my senses , just share this, my hear and now. The smell of the riverbank, the sound of the birds fighting over breakfast, the sound of a massive body of water whispering past my feet, the fresh cold air building goose pimples on my skin .. another memory pushed to the front ..
And then the sound of a Ktm clearing its throat in an underground garage ..
The plan is to take the coast road from here to Tallinn in Estonia, and maybe see if we can see the sea. Not much traffic about, still cold and windy, and its not long until we reach cake o’clock. Stop, punch in a pin and head for a coastal cafe. This area really looks set up for the summer months with lots of campsites near the water under the trees, but again all the cafes are closed and the beaches are deserted, so in the end we follow our noses like the Bistow kids and end up at cake and coffee heaven.
God knows what that is but it has my taste buds dancing and my tongue doing a tango .. I’m constantly amazed at the seemingly infinite recipes for creating obesity fixes .. but I usually don’t eat as much on a trip and I know that if we get where we’re heading I’ll be eating air sandwiches anyway ..
Take a quick walk down to the beach and push our way through the crowds to dip our toes in The Baltic
After a couple of hours the road and the sky both decide to take a turn for the worse and go very dull. We notice the scenery start to don its rain jacket so we find some shelter . .with cake .. and do the same
I didn’t think they needed this far north .. the sell by date was 1960
We decide if we’re going to get wet we might as well slow down and take a more indirect route inland so we get the maps out and just take a wandering route. They’ll still be cake I’m sure .. everyone loves cake. There really is bugger all up here .. nothing but trees for miles and miles and miles, small towns, more trees. It’s only August but everything seems to have closed. We spot a lovely looking cafe and I need to stop because my bladder has created enough pressure for me to cut through a 1 inch steel plate.. but its closed..
So I urinaly cut a UK flag out of the 1 inch metal front door and off we go. A word from the wise .. always remember to wear a mask when working with high urinal pressures, and always close your mouth, blow back can be a major problem.
Get the next town and spot an interesting shop ..
Go looking for refreshments .. there is a sort of pub/bar place but the owner looks like he has had his smile muscles removed and sold them on the internet so we walk out and see people going in and out of a house.. lots of people. It looks like a human bee hive.. people hovering.. waiting their turn .. all covered in nectar .. So we go for a look, walk in through someone’s converted living room and into their back garden for yet more coffee.. and yet more cake ..
Get to Tallinn and a very anonymous hotel by the ferry terminal. We’re actually taking a day off here to see the old city and just let the horses cool down, plus we want to go to the Ferry terminal tomorrow and see what gives about crossing the water to Finland
We’re wandering down to the old city and we’re constantly being buzzed by tossers on electric scooters. These bloody things are the bane of society. They’re all over the bloody place now. And here in Tallinn they really are all over the place. They are just thrown down across the pavements the moment they run out of power and left.. they’re bloody everywhere! I’m having a rant about it.. walking head down and ranting.. head down and I’m suddenly grabbed by Brian and I feel the wind of a speeding car pass right across the front of my legs as I’m standing in the road.. thanks Brian mate… I know he thinks he knows me inside out but one more step and he would have seen me inside out .. in kit form .. randomly distributed down the road … fuck.. that was close ..
We get to the edge of the old city. We’re not planning on going inside tonight so we find a bar on the outskirts where one single girl is desperately trying to serve everyone in the entire place, and take payments, and pour beer at the bar, and you can see shes struggling. As we leave Brian just gives her a kind word and asks if she’s OK.. and tears come to her eyes..
Get up and out to the ferry terminal, quite expecting that this might be a sticking point on the journey. So far we’ve avoided all officialdom and our passports have remained snugly in our pockets but at pinch points like this we know we’ll have to face up to the federales. So .. with some trepidation we go to the ticket lady and see what gives. ‘Vaccinated?’ .. ‘Yep’.. ‘OK, 36 Euros please’. ‘Ohhhhhh K then’. Its no problem at all. We’ll have passports and COVID certs checked in Helsinki .. and that’s us done .. horah!
So off we go into the old city. Its a beautiful place, a very beautiful place indeed.
Still remarkably few people about, certainly not enough to eat all the cake on offer. Brian is doing his best though ..
We’re walking along the old walls of the city see a little dark door, with a little dark man sitting in a little dark kiosk.. with a little dark look on his face .. so we give him some money and walk up to the top of the wall for a view of the city. We’re walking along and I see an bloke taking some pictures. I stand behind him because I dont want to get in his shot
At first I think he’s a vagrant. He’s wearing really shabby clothes and very worn shoes and he has sprayed himself lavishly with Eau de OldFella. So.. because we’re British.. we start chatting with him. He speaks with a strong Spanish accent but is actually an American from New Mexico. Travel is his thing and he usually goes at least 4 times a year. He says he feels like a cat that’s been let out of a cage. As soon as he had permission to come to Europe he was in the air and on his way. A really interesting character. I’m really not sure how many trips are left in him.. but I hope he enjoys every one.
And a Tinder profile picture for my old mate..
We wander back through the old streets and back to the hotel.. without any near death experiences this time .. and money money everywhere..
My bloody travel plug has gone tits up and I need a cable to charge my drone so I leave Brian to inspect the inside of his eyelids for an hour and skirt around looking for a lead. I quite like this place ..
All this cake is producing output that is putting us over our three wipe thresholds .. so we’ve decided we need to send a vegetable JCB down the tube to short this shit out … we were in the supermarket earlier and they had a hot food counter serving a large selection of unrecognisable brown slushy items, and vegetables, so we went out and got a load each and send them down to work in the dark depths of our bowels ..
