Helsinki (Finland) - 21st to 22nd of November 2009

Arriving back in Helsinki at 3pm, we had one objective, to drop our bags at the hostel and find our way to a pub to watch the All Blacks play England at 4. Still had time for a sunset shot though (at about 3.30!). Managed to make it to an Aussie pub that was playing the game at about 4.25 - turns out the game started at 4.30 - score!
After a round of drinks at the pub cost €16, we headed back to the hostel for a quiet one. Sunday, our last day on tour was another early one to make sure we made the most of the daylight. We tripped over to the sea fort Suomenlinna, only 15minutes away by ferry. Originally built by the Swedes in 1748 to protect against Russian expansionism, but the pesky Russians still managed to take over the fortress in 1808, marking the end of the Finnish war. It was used during WW1 as part of the naval fortification to protect St Petersburg, and was given back to independent Finland as a result of the Russian Revolution in 1917. In case you cant tell, we were both intrigued by Suomenlinna, and was definitely the highlight of our Finnish holiday.
We even stumbled across a small old submarine from WWII, the only Finnish submarine that remains after Finland was required to decommission its fleet at the end of the war.

Back into central Helsinki and through one of its many parks.

After a quick stroll past the site of the 1952 olympics, we ended up at the winter gardens, basically a large glasshouse containing a bunch of exotic plants, excluding some massive cacti.

Helsinki has a prety extensive tram network, even including a tram version of the cirlce line. Its basically a cheap tour of Helsinki, so we did the loop, taking about an hour. Unfortunately it was all too much for Ange who was asleep for most of it!

Obvioulsy right on the coast, Helsinki has plenty of coastline, and we managed to squeeze in a quick walk while the light was fading.
Free ice-skating rink in the main square, if you have your own skates that is, which clearly all Finns do, and we didn't.
Being smart, we had saved the only indoor thing we wanted to do until the sun had set at 4pm, the City of Helsinki Museum.

And that was that. Back to the hostel to pick up our bags and head to the airport after two amazing weeks of beers, language difficulties, amazing scenery and COLD!

Tampere, Finland - 20th to 21st of November 2009

Finland is only an hour and a quarter by ferry from Talinn, so Friday morning we jumped on the 8am boat north across to Helsinki. But Helsinki was scheduled for Saturday night, so we walked through town to the train station and jumped on a train north to Tampere. Only an hour and a half away, Tampere is situated on a river that runs between two large lakes. The weather on Friday unfortunately meant we couldn't do too much, and we only managed a quick walk around town.

Trying to minimise costs in mega-expensive Finland, we went back to the hostel via a supermarket and ate in, with a few beers of course. Again we tried to find some nightlife, lets just say the beers and wine in Finland are a fraction more expensive than Estonia!!

Between the two lakes is apparently the highest gravel ridge in the Northern Hemisphere. It didn't look very high to us, but still to high to walk on Saturday morning after a pretty big night - go the taxi's! Well worth the trip up though to see the views over the lakes.

Feeling slightly better after a scone at the visitor centre, we walked back down through the trees into town for a mid-afternoon train back to Helsinki.

Tallinn (Estonia) - 18th and 19th of November 2009

After another early morning and a 4 and a half hour bus ride, we arrived in the capital of Estonia, Tallinn. Having left behind Riga, we were very happy to find another very beautiful old town with winding cobbled streets and colourful houses. The medieval town hall.

We spent the afternoon wandering the streets, getting lost in old Tallinn.

Tallinn had the one thing that Riga was missing, some good old town walls. Nearly circling the whole of the old town, they are in good shape, and full of towers.

More walking...

Russian Orthodox church, the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, built between 1894 and 1900 as part of a general wave of Russification in the Russian Baltic provinces in the last quarter of the 19th Century.

We even made it out of the centre to Kadriorg park, about 2km west of the centre, for a few snaps of the Kadriorg Palace, home of the President.

Again we spent some time in search of some nightlife. We were moderately successful this time, Ange making the most of the free drinks on "ladies night Wednesdays".

Thursday we signed up to a tour put on by the hostel to see the Estonian coastline west of Tallinn. Ange and I were the only ones to sign up, but luckily enough the tour leader (and hostel owner) still took us, he just brought his wife and 1 year old daughter along for the ride. It was like being on a family outing, all snug in the back of his people mover.

The first stop was just off the highway for a lookout back over to the beach, one of Tallinn's favourite summer escapes.

A few minutes down the road for another quick stopoff, this time for a little stroll through a park and down to a pretty awesome waterfall. Apparently, at 6.1m, its Estonia's second highest.

By now it was about midday, so time for some sunset shots! After a week of grey skys, we finally got a sunny day, and we realised that the sun never seems to get very high above the horizon. It leaves you wondering if the sun is rising or setting, and how bad it must be in the true depths of winter!

Our destination for the day was a little town called Paldiski. It was once the most heavily militarised soviet base on the Estonian coast. Our guidebook suggested that the old nuclear submarine base and crumbling barracks could still be seen, but over the last couple of years the Estonian Government decided this wasn't such a good thing, and set about demolishing them. Today it is a very sleepy town full of port workers and communist-looking concrete block apartment buildings. The only thing to see now is on the far side of town where there are some pretty impressive limestone cliffs.

After a surprisingly good lunch in Paldiski we stopped in at an old monastery on the way back to Tallinn. Very much in ruins, the stonework made it absolutely freezing, but we had a great time clambering over, under and around what's left of the 13th century buildings.

With another early morning in store for us on Friday, we called it quits early on Thursday night, but not before demolishing some savoury pancakes for dinner (apparently its what you do in that part of the world).

Riga (Latvia) - 16th and 17th of November 2009

Thankfully, after a 300km journey that took 7 hours thanks to two very long border stops (including scary Russians and Latvians searching through our bags) our hostel in Riga had a room available that we could check into at 6am. So we spent the morning snoozing before heading out for a walk in the afternoon.

The first stop was the awesome central market which sells a bit of everything. Ange is in love with markets (in case you didn't know), so it took some doing to get her to leave!
But once we did leave, we spent a bit of time getting lost in the old town. Riga's old town is very impressive - lots of cool church spires, winding streets and colourful buildings, and arguably the best we have seen.

Just north of the old town is the old town moat, now a very picturesque park.

On the hour every hour they have a changing of the guard at the Freedom Monument, built in 1935, which was the focus of the Latvian independence (from the Russians) movement in the late '80s and early 90s.

Bit more of a walk around as the light was fading.

Although it was a Monday night, we thought we would give the Riga nightlife a shot. Started off with some very yummy cocktails followed by an awesome Italian meal (all at rediculously cheap prices) but unfortunately there was no nightlife to be found so we headed home at a reasonable hour ready for a big days walking the following day.

We jumped on an 8am bus out to the Gauja National Park, Latvia's first national park, founded in 1973. We got off the bus in Sigulda, and made our way past Sigulda Church to the New Sigulda Castle.

Just behind the New Sigulda Castle, on the edge of the valley, are the ruins of the Knights Stronghold, built between 1207 and 1226. They haven't been restored at all, so its amazing to think that this has been standing here for about 800 years.

From Sigulda, on one side of the valley, so Krimulda on the other side. We could have walked, but instead chose the much more exciting option of taking the cable car, which stretches for over 1km across the valley.

The ruins of Krimulda Castle.

From Krimulda, it was good hours hike along the river to Turaida. But it was a great walk, passing by some picture perfect lakes and a couple of very old caves, one with graffiti on it from the 1600's.

Feeling a little bit wary, we finally made it to Turaida, home to a 13th century red-bricked archbishop's castle. The castle is in the middle of some great gardens and has been partially restored, allowing us a great glimpse into the past. View from the top of the Doujon Tower.

Having walked all that way, we weren't planning on walking back, so we jumped in a cab for the 5 minute ride back to Sigulda. The whole area is known as a bit of a adrenaline-junkie spot - in summer you can bungee jump off the cable car. In winter, if you time it right, you can jump in the back of a bobsled and be taken down Sigulda's very own bobsled track, built for the former soviet bobsled team. We were both very keen to do it, but the track was closed because it was in use as a training venue for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Our two days in Latvia were arguably the highlight of our trip. Riga's old town and the beautiful Gauja National Park left us wanting more. Luckily Estonia was not to disappoint...