Exploring Vanalinn

We visited Toompea in Old Town, an old part of the town fortress wall and tower. There were lots of people here, it was very old and breathtaking as our first historical picture of Eesti. (Besides the actual town itself....)

Kalle Kusta is a restaurant in Vanalinn, on the way to Viru Keskus. (Every Estonian knows the song.....Cha Cha Cha BOOM!)

Eesti v Andora

We visited a ticket shop the day after we arrived to purchase tickets to the Euro 2008 Football qualifier between Eesti and Andorra. Unfortunatley the game was sold out. At first. While we were at the counter still talking to the assistant, she jumped and said two tickets had become available suddenly! They were the last two sold for the game! We arrived early on the day, and entered the gates of the Le Coq Arena. The stadium is very nice and perfect size just for football games! We followed our tickets to our seats - second row, middle of the goal posts! We were opposite the Eesti supporters (meaning we were in the Andorran fans box - but there were none in there.....they had tried to surprise the Eesti supporters by booking other seats...)
Our seats had the best view of the game, and saw so much action close up. Fantastic Day....

Mart Ready for the big game.

Heading for the warm-up.

A stadium of Eestlased singing the Eesti Hümn

The crowd is ready for a big game.

EESTI SCORES 1 - 0!

The Blue-Black Army is still singing strong.

Eestlane sent off. Not really fair and going to half time with only 10 men but 1 - 0 up.

Back for second half. Mart makes a great save.

Andora equalise. Now 1 - 1.

GOAL TO EESTI. Now 2 - 1 but the scorer gets sent off for celebrating with his shirt off. Down to 9 men.

FULL TIME EESTI WINS 2 - 1!

We are happy.

Shopping and Eatting Estonian style

After spending too much money shopping in Helsinki, we decided to continue the spending in Tallinn. (Not on purpose...)
We spent our first few days walking through Old Town, taking pictures and pointing. We spent time in the largest shopping mall we have seen since Sydney - Viru Keskus. Dee bought new sunglasses, and shoes. Ivar got a new belt, CD's, DVD's, Eesti CD's.

Eating is a pleasure in Tallinn. We have a lovely old restaurant right near our apartment where no other tourists go. It's called the Tricky Ants Farm in English, and they had lunchtime buffet's of roast pork, potatoes, sauerkraut, chicken and more for 49 Estonian Kronur - about 3 Euros - about 5 Australian dollars. Bargain. Best we have eaten in a long long time.

Tallinn Eesti!

We arrived in Tallinn, Estonia (Eesti) on the most beautiful summer's day. We dropped our bags in the Raekoja Plats (town square) and settled into a small wine cafe to have a bite to eat and have a drink. Ivar had his first Eesti beer. (Saku - Eesti brewed brand.) We watched the goings on and whiled a couple of hours away before we could enter our apartment.

We walked about 800m to the apartment and waited around until the landlord arrived. The apartment was not a big affair, just a small loungeroom, bedroom and kitchen, and a bathroom that was only a shower (About 50 cm by 80 cm). You open the bathroom door, and you are in the shower! The toilet was just as small, but working (most of the time).

We had a week in this apartment, just enjoying being outside of the tent. We had a bed to sleep in, a couch and a TV (Complete with MTV Eesti). We had a kitchen to cook more than two minute noodles in, and our own shower and toilet. And we were less than a bus ride to the centre of Vanalinn (Old Town).

Helsinki

We arrived in Helsinki early in the morning after a long sleepless night train trip from Rovaniemi. The weather was fantastic, and we caught the metro out to the campground (which had it's own metro stop....) We set up in one of the best campgrounds we have been to - great (free) showers - and free gas to cook.....and internet.... we quickly caught up on sleep and Harry Potter's adventures.

We spent the next few days just chilling out and exploring the city, visiting the markets and old town market, the statues and churches (a massive military celebration with old tanks and guns and even an old aeroplane). We walked so much our feet hurt (and our credit cards aswell from a couple of bargain buys...) We checked out the Kiasma contemporary art gallery, and watched a summer street hockey tournament. Helsinki is a very cool city with heaps going on all of the time.

Rovaniemi

We found a nice camping site on the river and set up camp in Rovaniemi. We visited the Arktikum - an exhibition/museum on Lapland and the historic culture of the Sami people and the local animals.

On Dasher, On Blitzen....

We left Tromso at 7:30 in the morning bound for Rovaniemi, Finland. Rovaniemi is Santa Claus' Official Residence & has midnight sun all summer. We passed lots of Reindeer on the way, they are quite slow and often didn't even realise the bus was crawling along behind them waiting for them to get off the road!! They look like cartoon animals from behind, with big clompy feet and a skinny body, and then huge fuzzy antlers sticking up in the air.

Brewery...

Today we caught the bus into town - it was raining and a little bit cold...Apparently we had arrived on one of the few sunny days! We went on a tour of Mack Brewery - the World's Northernmost Brewery. We got free beer and a souvenir.

We also went by a very interesting store on the bus...."Ivar's Musikk".....shame it was closed when we walked by :(

Tromso

We arrived in Tromso to a beautiful day - we were expecting the worst considering how northern the town is! It is our first stop above the Arctic Circle!

We arrived at the campground without too much hassle - apart from a TV News Crew who wanted to film us setting up our tent and then interview us about why we choose to camp instead of using hotels..... We walked to nearby football pitches where they can play all night because of the Midnight Sun. We went for another stroll at midnight to watch the light over the city.

Last couple of days.

We spent a day relaxing in Reykjavik and went to their largest mall where we sat in a coffee shop on the wi-fi for a couple of hours.
The next day we drove the last little bit from Reykjavik to Keflavik (airport). We visited some of the stinkiest hotpots yet, and a really old church that belongs to an old viking village.




We drove then to the Blue Lagoon - one of the biggest commercial attractions in Iceland, but one that can't be missed. It was fantastic. Warm muddy water to bathe in, expensive mud to clean our skin.....we spent a couple of hours in the lagoon and the sauna's & fountains before setting up camp for the last time in Iceland.

Berunes to Reykjavik (almost)

We left a windy cold Berunes early the next morning, hoping to drive at least halfway to Reykjavik. We drove and drove all day, passing through windy cliffs, long tunnels, inland highways & stopping at stinky hot pots. We kept driving until we found a campground that we were happy with, and ended up driving until we were only 80 km's from Reykjavik! We set up camp on a lonely campsite on the side of the river, in time for a great sunset. We had another visitor during the night, a curious little field mouse who kept trying to leap into the tent! (He was too quick for a photo!)

Vik to Berunes

The second day driving we passed Glaciers and Iceberg and end in a town of 3 houses called Berunes. We had the camp ground to ourselves and a small kitchen were we could cook out of the bellowing wind and cold.