So, after a somewhat extended holiday from blogging, I getting back to things. I've decided that my holidays should be broken into two section, so here's the first of the two.
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| Medieval city walls of Tallinn with a modern market. |
After our booze-cruise over to Tallinn from Helsinki, Scott and I spent a couple of nights at a B&B just outside of Tallinn and explored the old town...a bit. The town really is interesting, however the weather was less than ideal with windy bouts of mixed rain and snow forcing us into a café or museum on a regular basis. Parts of the city wall are still standing from when they were constructed in Medieval times and the buildings lining the narrow cobblestone streets are ranging in age, but most are over 100 years old. The city itself was constructed upon a good-sized hill overlooking the surrounding countryside (now the modern part of the city) and the Gulf of Finland (Baltic Sea). This classic walled-city-in-a-hill was surrounded by moats as an additional defense at the base of the hill. Some sections of these can still be seen today and are used as ponds in parks.
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| Pärnu beach when the storm finally broke. I can see how it would be very nice in the summer.... |
We moved on from Tallinn and took a bus southwards to the town Pärnu. The primary purpose of this trip was to see more of the Estonian countryside and forests as well as to get a feel for a smaller town that was not inundated by drunk Finns. Pärnu is THE summer resort town of the Baltic States. Seeing how it was mid December...the town was all but abandoned. I'm quite sure we were the only tourists in town for the entire week (we were only there for 1 night). It was really interesting to see the town and locals without throngs of holiday-ers. The streets were pretty much dead as the weather continued to worsen and no-one ventured outside...except us. And we froze. On the plus side, Pärnu has some really interesting old-style wooden houses. You can see remnants of building like these in Joensuu and other towns around Finland, but they haven't been restored as nicely as the ones in Pärnu. Instead, old wooden buildings like these are often torn down "for public safety" or because they are too expensive to maintain in Finland. I guess the tourist dollars are sufficient in Pärnu to maintain the old-style buildings. Pärnu has a huge and beautiful beach...the only South-facing beach in the Baltics! Unfortunately, we couldn't see the beach because the huge waves had swallowed it up all the way to the dunes. We couldn't even see the shoreline due to the heavy precipitation. It was almost dark out, the surf was surging and the waves were wild...but...of course, there was someone out kite-boarding (not sure if that is the technical term for it) back and forth along the shoreline. Crazy. Or stupid. Not sure which. Fortunately, we made a second trip to the beach the next day and it was almost sunny. Overall, Estonia is similar to Finland, but with heavy Russian overtones (they were a Soviet State until 1990)
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| Pärnu downtown. I loved the brilliant colours used to paint the buildings! |
After an uneventful trip back to Helsinki, we took off to Copenhagen for Christmas with family. After a long journey on Helsinki public transit (while fully loaded with baggage), we made it to the airport and had a quick flight to Copenhagen. Once in Copenhagen, we took the train to North Zealand and met my aunt with whom we stayed for a few days. Although it should've just been a simple flight, the trains and busses on either end made it feel more like an epic than than a quick hop over the Baltic Sea. My Aunt lives near an extensive forest with extensive walking trails and a large lake (It used to be the King's forest for hunting, timber production, and horses). It is the same forest that we would hear stories of back at UBC Forestry....
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| Forest edge near Nødebo: an old oak tree, field and lake |
The Danes used to have one of the most powerful navies in Europe, however, it was taken by surprise in their harbour (through some miscommunication) by the English. At the end of the day, there were basically no ships left as the English sailed home with them when the Danes (through another miscommunication) surrendered. Of course, the fleet had to be rebuilt after this, but there were no suitable oak trees to be found. So the King ordered that an oak forest be planted to rebuild his navy and ensure the Danes would continue to have a formidable navy for generations to come. The forest was ready to harvest in the mid 1990's...and was not used to build a wooden navy fleet (hard to believe, I know...) The trees still stand today, but are slowly being harvested and used in building restorations and ship recreations.
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| Garden paths at the Summer Palace |
We then met Mille in Copenhagen, but soon set out for the city centre where we spent the afternoon at the botanical gardens and wandering the streets of downtown, just taking in the Christmas madness of downtown Copenhagen on Dec 23, the day before Christmas. In Scandinavia and Nordic countries (I'm not sure what other countries too), Christmas is celebrated on Christmas eve, Dec 24, and Dec 25 is really a non-event. Mostly just a day of food-hangovers. Dec 24 we all (4 of us) piled into the little car and headed West to spend Christmas Eve with more family. Christmas Eve was really fantastic, although I didn't know most of the people very well, I felt very welcome and part of the family. We had afternoon coffee, snacks, Christmas dinner (with 2 courses and all the traditional fixings), dessert, and more coffee, and more treats. I was soo full I thought I couldn't move. Somehow, after all that eating (amazing food!) we managed to make it across town to church for Midnight Mass. For those of you who don't know me very well, I'm not a religious person. In fact, this was the first time that I have ever been to church for a reason other than a wedding or funeral. However, this seemed like the perfect opportunity for a first time: Christmas with family and friends. I did enjoy the service (ok, so I didn't understand much....it was in Danish...I understand more Finnish than Danish now), but I probably won't start doing it regularly. Finally we were off to bed and Christmas Eve was over.
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| Roskilde Cathedral - the burial place of the Danish Royal Family |
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| Scott investigating the engineering strategy of a home-made armored vehicle |
The next few days were spent touring the city and catching up on digestion...and eating a bit more of course. Mille even took us up to the castle at Helsingor (Kronborg Slot), which was as really nice outing for the day. The weather started out nasty, but the wind blew the clouds out in a hurry and we enjoyed a very windy, but sunny, day along the sea...looking across at Sweden. Soon, we were saying our goodbyes...took the awkward baggage-laden trip on public transit across Copenhagen...and hopped on the plane back to Helsinki. We arrived late at night, so we stayed in a hostel and took the train back up to Joensuu the next day.
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| In the Chapel at Kronborg Slot |
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