I was really looking forward to coming to Estonia after hearing great things about it in the past, as well as the fact that its one of the world's most wired countries. I don't quite know what I was expecting, but it was probably somewhere between Back to the Future II (aka, future Hill Valley) and... well, no Future Hill Valley pretty much sums it up, flying cars and all. But, after the bus ride in, wifi equipped and all, we found it to be somewhere between a medieval village and Boston I guess, since the trams that run here are strikingly similar to the terrible green line in Boston. Except that these have these archaic ticket punches that you use to validate your tickets, which of course, then no one actually checks. But, after getting over the hoards of tourists that descend on this city from the cruise ships parked in the harbour, its been a great week in this very old town.

First, we have to begin with what was, undoubtedly, the creepest place we have ever been. You won't find it on the Tallinn Tourism page, you'll barely find it on internet searches, and you certainly won't find it on the top 10 things to do in Tallinn from the local tourist department. But, it is well worth the trip out to Patarei prison. The website doesn't have a whole lot of history on it, but from what I've been able to get, it was a defensive fortification built in 1840 under the Russians. It became technologically outdated and by 1919 it had been converted into a prison that was to be used by all in power in Estonia until 2002. From 2002 - 2004, it was used as a prison hospital, which pretty much means they just transferred all sick prisoners here. Then, apparently rather suddenly, it was closed in 2004, and basically everything that was there at that time was just left it place. Since then, its been transformed into a museum, a concert hall, and in some parts, a modern art gallery, but mostly it has been left alone, just like it was left in 2004.

The prison was made from limestone, and stands right next to the sea. The combination of these two makes the entire structure a very cold, windy and damp place. We walked up to the entrance, where a woman started to speak to us in Estonian (I'm guessing?), and while we protested that we spoke English and couldn't understand, she kept right on, pointing to the different floors of the museum, and the way we should proceed, and then pointed to a different side of the building and made a motion like she was being hung. So, we proceeded inside. It was dark, and we were the only ones around. The ground floor was the prison kitchen, and while one room housed some rusted out sinks and ovens, most of the other rooms looked like they were straight out of horror movies, complete with broken tiles everwhere and very very dark corners. The second floor was a little brighter, but proved to be even more disturbing. This was the medical hallway. The hospital rooms where patients were kept were closed off by thick metal doors, complete with peepholes. I'm pretty sure some of the sheets still laying on the beds were used by the last patient to be unfortunate enough to be treated there. Then we got to the ER and the operating room. I felt like I was going to catch something just walking around the broken instruments and other paraphanalia that was scattered about. The third floor was a little better, but much much windier. I think most of the rooms on the left side were converted into 'concert halls'. However, the rooms on the right side were evidently never transformed from their life as prison cells, and the metal bunkbeds and dirty mattresses from the prison remained inside, as well as some strange art in some of them. The lady that was sitting there watching over all of this 'art' on the third floor nearly scared me to death, although she never said a word - I was just surprised to see someone sitting there knitting. Then we walked over to the other side of the building and surprise, surprise, it was kinda like the woman at the front had indicated - it was the hanging room. Ghastly is really all I have to say about that. (Another good online post about this prison can be found on World Nomads).

The reason that we had actually gone to that prison though is that it was right next to the Maritime museum of ships, where we got to tour a WWII Estonian submarine, as well as walk onboard another ship with big guns that we probably weren't supposed to go on. We also went up to the Convent of St Brigitta in the northern suburb of Pirita and hung out on the beach watching the windsurfers for a while. And today we took a tour through the old city bastions, which were built by the Swedes in the 16th century, and later had many uses, including a bomb shelter and an unofficial home for the homeless. There was one story about the bastions which was funny though - as told by the tour guide, the homeless would always lock the doors to one part of the bastion, so that anyone who wanted to come down there had to be granted access, including the police or other city officials (they were rarely granted such a privledge). However, metal thieves struck in 2004 and carried out every scrap of metal from the rest of the area, including a 6m generator, but they were unwilling to fight the homeless to get into the locked area, and now, that area is the only part of the museum that has any metal left in it.

And, lastly, we took a very long bike ride yesterday out in Lahemaa National Park. The route was supposedly 40km long, although we took a few detours. We biked past old manor homes, traditional Estonian homes in bad need of repair, through beautiful untouched forests, and along the Gulf of Finland. It was a really great day, especially since we've been in cities for what feels like so long. My favorite part of yesterday was the 9.5km ride through the forest, which at points, was dead silent. We also saw some beaver dams, and I even spotted a beaver, although, unfortunately, no large mammals were sighted.

So, I think that was pretty much all of Estonia. It's certainly not the high tech place I pictured it to be from the outside, but on closer look, there's free wireless everywhere, and a lot more things are automated and programmed then you would think (Ashley claims that the trams and the streetlights talk to each other - this has yet to be conclusively proven). But, if you can avoid (or at least ignore) the tourist crowds that hog the streets of old town, its certainly a place worth visting, not least of all for its natural beauty.