A Nordic hop, skip and jump across to Tallinn

With Norway in our rear view mirror we were driving across Sweden heading for the Abisko National Park. We had been here before on a northern lights winter trip and it didn’t disappoint.

We stopped for a hike at Abisko and walked down to the lake shore (that we had walked across frozen in the winter) and then up the river. A beautiful place in all seasons.

We couldn’t stop for long though as our plan was to make it through the Nordics quickly so we could spend a bit more time in the Baltics.

As we headed south across Sweden we stopped for lunch at a really lovely beach on a lake. There were picnic tables and even free wood available for fires. Unfortunately the day we were there was not so sunny so we moved on and didn’t stay to enjoy the beach.

Just South of here we hit the Arctic Circle and stopped for the obligatory photo of the sign which we had missed on the way north in Norway because we were on the tiny coastal road.

Although we were heading through Sweden rather quickly we did make a detour to visit the Gammelstad church town. This  is a Unesco site and is the best preserved example of a “church” town. These weren’t proper towns but instead were effectively towns of holiday homes clustered around a central church. People would trek from their actual homes to stay in their church town house at the weekend and for holidays. These towns are unique to Northern Scandinavia and exist because of the large parish sizes, inclement weather and laws requiring church attendance.

The town was still in use until the 1950’s and although some of the houses are still used for major religious holidays most are not. The houses did not have plumbing and each block has a central toilet for communal use.

After this interesting stop off we carried on driving and soon found ourselves in Finland.

The good weather had returned and our first Finnish stop was in a small regional park where we went for a walk through some woods – which were plagued by swarms of mosquitos – and had a lovely swim in a river which was fairly warm unlike the arctic swimming opportunities !

Finland is the land of lakes and forests and we found a couple of great places to stop for the night or longer if we weren’t beelining Helsinki and our ferry across to Latvia.

On arriving in Helsinki we found a car park just outside the centre and jumped on our bikes to explore as neither of us had been here before.

Helsinki is a fairly modern clean city which was really easy to cycle around. We made our way down to the harbour area and explored the little market there.

At one of the many food stalls we tried Vendace which are a lake fish that is similar to whitebait and is served lightly battered with lemon. Being seafood lovers this was right up our street and we weren’t disappointed.

We took a ferry from the bustling harbour to Suomenlinna Fortress. This is a sea fortress built over 6 islands and 200 hectares by the Swedish in the 18^th century, the primary purpose of which was to defend against the Russian Empire.

The fortress is vast and you can wander around the various islands for hours, accessing some of the buildings, seeing the big dry dock and the miles of walls.

Once we had our fill of the fortress we headed back to the ferry and across to Helsinki to pick up our bikes and carry on cycling around the city.

We stayed the night in the same car park that we had parked in all day because the next morning we had to be at the ferry terminal first thing for our crossing to Tallinn.

The ferry itself was massive and we were surprised at how busy it was, every single seat on board was taken. There was a long line of people outside the duty free shop, the corridors were packed and others just sat on the floor wherever they could find a space. We’ve never seen a ferry like it. It felt more like a party boat, with children’s entertainers, DJ’s and bingo!

The ferry takes around 2 hours and we soon arrived in Tallinn as the ferry terminal is really close to the old town. Conveniently there is a car park for motorhomes right next to the old town so we had no problems finding somewhere to park for our stopover.

The old town of Tallin is fairly compact and a great size for a weekend sightseeing trip.

The old town is a walled and cobbled medieval town with a big square in the middle. We stopped off for lunch at one of the restaurants near the central square and had our first taste of the famous black Baltic garlic bread, which is common to all of the Baltic countries. It is made with black rye bread and absolutely drenched in garlic butter. If you like garlic you will love this and we were to have it many times throughout our trip in this region.

During our stay in Tallin we also made time for two other stops. The first was the Seaplane harbour or Lennusadam which is a maritime museum. Here, in the massive hangars that used to house Seaplanes, is a fascinating museum, the highlight of which is a British built submarine called Lembit that you can explore inside.

Outside the hangar there are also a number of ships on the dock and in the water that you can explore including a 100 year old icebreaker with massive engines. You can go on board and walk around. The engines stretch most of the length of the ship and are three stories high.

The second place that we visited was Kadriog park which is centred around the Kadriog Palace, now an art museum. The park was built under the instruction of Peter the Great in 1718.

This was a great introduction for us to the Baltics. We loved Tallinn, there is plenty to do and see without feeling overwhelmed, which is sometimes the case with larger cities, great food and friendly people. You might want to leave the bikes at home though as the many cobbled streets make cycling around quite uncomfortable !