Making My Odyssey: 07/2011

In June I had booked a trip for me and seven of my photo-friends to take a trip to Tallinn, that is, Pictura members were headed for a summer excursion together. We took a package deal that included the boat trip (excl. cabins) and hotel rooms via Viking Line. It cost 75e per person, which I think is pretty cheap, since the hotel was very nice! We stayed at Hotel Clarion Euroopa and it was new and fresh and our rooms were spacious and had large and nice beds. Breakfast was also very good! The hotel was within walking distance from the harbor/Viking Line terminal, just on the other side of the basin. I liked the hotel very much and would definitely want to stay there when staying in Tallinn!

On Friday we didn’t do that much. We had a lovely meal at an inexpensive restaurant, a little on the outskirts of town. It was called "Seiklusjutte maalt ja merelt". <- Here’s a link for you to check out their menu and location, if you’re interested!:) We took a walk to the old town, checked out some sights just walking around. We happened to locate an exhibition of the local art school (Estonian Academy of Arts), so we went in and took a look: very cool stuff! On top of the old town, on one of the scenic lookouts, we enjoyed some ice cream and live blues music. On the way home we took a stop at a bar called Scotland Yard and had something to eat.

On Saturday morning some of us were tired and one of us had been out photographing all night, so we came up with various pit stops and programs before joining for some ”together time”. After breakfast me, Ida and Daniel took off to Saint Olaf’s Church because it has a nice lookout tower. The rise to the top was quite heavy and the stairway/passage was very narrow, but the view from the top was very nice!

After that we met with the rest of the group and checked out Tallinn’s Photo Museum. We found the place and enjoyed the air-conditioned coolness of a modest photo museum. It’s quite strange but apparently Estonia doesn’t have any big photo museums! The one we visited was small, cozy and inexpensive, but it didn’t show off any of the modern photo artists as such. Maybe the Museum for Modern Art, Kumu, would have been the right place? The photo museum displayed some early Estonian photographers and also some wooden box cameras.

After the museum we had lunch at restaurant Lido, which is in a shopping center. Good food (too much to choose from!) and pretty ok price range. After lunch we had some shopping time, but I didn’t find anything special to buy. Soon it was time to say bye-byes to my photo-friends: they were headed back to Finland while I was planning to stay in Estonia for a few days. But that’s in another story! :)