Mon April 28, 2025
Hi Folks! We really enjoyed our second day in Tallinn. We were supposed to do an early tour with Silversea but realized late last night that there was a lot of overlap with the tour we had yesterday so we cancelled that. (Which let us sleep in a little!).
Our tour guide yesterday mentioned that if anyone wanted a private tour of the lower old town he’d be glad to offer it at 11 AM today. We decided that was a better idea so we opted for that (and we were the only ones so we got a private tour!). It was also a lot warmer outside at 11 AM vs the early tour. So we took the 11 AM shuttle bus and met him outside the Russian Cultural Center.
He showed us so many cool and off the beaten path places. We saw the oldest continuously operating pharmacy in the world. He took us thru these little alleyways to old coffee shops that were popular during Russian times as well as to these local artisan shops that handcrafted wood and leather. We walked past the Russian Embassy with lots of protest signs again Putin as well as an ever visible police presence. And at the end of this two hour private tour he did not want to accept any money for it! The people of Tallinn are so kind and friendly but of course we paid him well for our private tour. It was a great way to end our time in Tallinn! We love it here!
We then took the shuttle back to the ship and had lunch. After lunch we went to the speaker topic on “Stunning Stockholm”. He said Sweden is known for IKEA, Saab, reindeer and ABBA!
They have a daily ritual here called Fika, which in essence is a coffee break with sweets. It is a Kingdom and the current king is King Karl the 16th, and he’s been their longest king for the last 50 yrs. His heir will be Princess Victoria.
They are in the EU but not yet on the Euro. They have the 14th highest GDP in the world. It is home to Alfred Nobel of the Nobel Peace prize (who ironically became wealthy due to inventing dynamite! Gotta love that!). They hosted the 1912 Olympic Summer Games.
He went on to describe all the cool places to visit in Stockholm with the highlight being the old town called Gamla Stan. After this talk we were even more excited to visit there!
We then started to get ready for dinner since it’s a formal
Night tonight and they’re having the Captain’s Farewell Party and Crew Recognition event at 6:15. I’ll do another update later tonight. Happy Monday to all!
The Wandering Italian 