Category: Estonia

Zooks Goes to Countryside Town Called Puka in Estonia.

ZooksLeave a comment

Tere!

This story is so trivial, but since Puka, a small town in Estonia, is not so well-known, I decided to write about it for my website.

Puka is a town in Estonia, which one of my Estonian friends is from. One day we were just talking, and the topic was changed to our birthdays. Then I came to know that on one Sunday in August, 2022 there was her birthday. She said “I don’t have a plan to have a big party, and I will just go to Puka. You are also welcome.” Therefore I immediately decided to go to Puka.

From Tallinn to Puka which is almost Latvia, there are only four trains per day, and it takes three hours one way. Even though I took the earliest one from Tallinn, I arrived in Puka at 10.30 am. I wondered what to do for the return trip, and eventually I decided to go back to Tallinn on the same day because the next day was Monday, I had work, I had to train a newly hired employee, and I had an Estonian language class after work. However, my friend suggested me staying at her parents’ place in Puka.

By the way, I thought that I hadn’t mentioned how to buy tickets in Elron, the Estonian train, in any article, so I will explain that too.

Table of Contents

     1. How to buy tickets on Elron’s website
     2. What kind of town is Puka?
     ★Summary

1. How to buy tickets on Elron’s website

It’s very easy to buy train tickets on Elron’s website. Open the website first. It totally depends on you if you create an account there.

After logging in or opening the webpage, enter the origin and the destination, and set the date. You cannot set the date no more than one week ahead. This probably means it’s not crowded that much usually. 😂 Once you enter them, click “Go”.

Let’s find the most suitable time. After selecting the time, click “Choose”.

Select the number of tickets that you need, and click “Next”.

Check the origin, the destination, and the date and time. If you don’t have an Elron farecard, hit ”Buy ticket to e-mail”.

Enter your email address, and go next by clicking “Add cart”.

Given that you need a return ticket, click ”Add return ticket”.

Then you will see the payment option so select the most suitable one.

Have a tick in “I have read and agree with terms and conditions.”, and hit ”Confirm”.

After the payment, you will receive an email with a PDF file which is your ticket.

If you buy tickets for a round trip, both tickets are contained in one QR code, so you will see only one page in the PDF file.

That’s it!

Easy peasy, right?

2. What kind of town is Puka?

Puka is quite a countryside town as you may imagine.

Tallinn has nothing, and it gets me fed up with it after living in Tallinn for five years. However, probably because it is still the biggest city in Estonia, my body and mind seemed to be fatigued due to the noisy environment in the city. Arriving in Puka in summer, it was full of green, and the air was so fresh. Those simple things just relaxed me physically.

The station in Puka had no one, and on the platform, my friend and her friend welcomed me. From there we went to my friend’s parents’ place by her friend’s car.

My friend has a black cat at home in Tallinn, so she brought her to her parents’ place where two other cats lived as well. There was one more black cat and one grey kitten.

When I visited the friend’s place in Tallinn, when I went to a cat cafe in Tallinn, and when I stayed at my boss’s place with a cat, I didn’t have any allergic symptoms with cats like I had as a child. However, at my friend’s parents’ place, I had some allergic symptoms with a cat.

Later, we found that the grey kitten was only three years old in human age, and his short hair was soaring in the air. Then I took it as dust in my body, and that is why I had the allergic symptoms. Without the grey cat, and if I didn’t move, I barely had a runny nose and my eyes were not so itchy.

It seemed I was okay with cats without soaring hair in a clean place.

At my friend’s parents’ place, we had her mum’s Estonian potato salad, had some snacks while watching a film, and ate ice cream in the garden with her two other friends. We didn’t do anything touristic in Puka.

Estonian potato salad

If you ask me about any adventure that I had in Puka, then I would say exploring her parents’ garden. 😂

I was aware that there are lots of private apple trees in Estonia (or even in the whole Europe), and yet they had a pear tree too. They also had tomatoes as well as cucumbers in their small greenhouse, and there were pumpkins, carrots, potatoes and strawberries too. Moreover, my friend showed me raspberries, plums, red currants, black currants, and aronias in addition to cherries. Yeah, there were literally a lot. 😂

Aronia juice

As for the potato salad that her mum made, the potatoes were their own ones. Brilliant.

They have a small lake in front of the garden, and my friend told me they swim there once in a while in summer.

That’s so good, they don’t need to pay for water to have a pool.😂

Also, there is a pharmacy from the station in Puka to her parents’ place. Before going back to the station, I came to know that an Estonian film called ”Sügis” which means “Autumn” in English used that pharmacy in the film. The story is based on an Estonian novelist, Oskar Luts.

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By the way, because I started watching “Talve” which is the continuation of ”Sügis” for learning Estonian, I watched the whole series including “Kevade” (spring) and “Suvi” (summer). 😂 I’m not a huge fan of Estonia, but still I watched all of them, so if you are a fan of Estonia, you should probably watch them. ✌️

★Summary

When I was about to go to the station in Puka with my friend and her friend, my friend’s dad told me to come there again, especially when I’m tired of Tallinn. Since it seemed that her mum was not able to speak English, I thought “I want to see them again with a better Estonian language skill next time.” Also, I reckoned that I would come there again when I have more time because it takes three hours by train from Tallinn…

Puka literally has nothing, but it was a good place to take a break.

A weekend trip might be good.

They also told me it would take 2.5 hours by car, so maybe you can drive a car there too.

Aitäh! 🙂

Outdoor Activities You Can Do in Summer in Estonia.

ZooksLeave a comment

Tere!

In Estonia, once a year, there is an event called “summer days” held by a company. If a company is too startup and has little money like sometimes they struggle with even paying for their employees’ salaries, “summer days” may not happen, but in many companies in Estonia it seems they have. Based on my own experience and bias, the majority of the companies in Estonia hold summer-day events with leisure activities and stays, and yet some companies include work…

In Timbeter, which was my first company to work in Estonia, during 2 and half a year, I had this summer-day event only once, and it included work. I had to give a presentation with a few of my colleagues, and after that, we went to an adventure park, had dinner and had BBQ after dinner. Next morning, we checked out after the breakfast. This company had only 10 employees at that time, but they checked only CEO and CTO’s schedules in summer, and the summer-day event date overlapped with my vacation, so I got compensative vacation days later.

In the company which I worked for in 2022, we went to Võhandu river and Partisi lake as our summer-day event.

Table of Contents

     1. Where on earth are Võhandu river and Partsi lake!?
          a. Võhandu river
          b. Partsi lake
     2. Activities we did
     3. Accommodation
     ★Summary

1. Where on earth are Võhandu river and Partsi lake!?

Estonia has been popular among Japanese people since I came here, and there are lots of famous places for them compared to the time before 2017, but still they or even you may think:




Where the hell Võhandu river and Partsi lake. 😂


Both Võhandu river and Partsi lake are located in a county called Põlva which is sotuhern than Tartu. I wasn’t involved in planning this summer-day event (and it was not my job), so I still don’t know why Võhandu river and Partsi lake were chosen.

a. Võhandu river

We gathered in the office in Tallinn, and went to Võhandu river and Partsi lake by van chartered, spending three hours.

If you want to go there by yourself, it would be difficult to go there unless you charter a van by yourself or rent a car or drive your own car, I thought.

b. Partsi lake

Partsi lake has an island in the lake, and an accommodation is just beside the lake. The island in the lake was full of trees and grasses, so I didn’t land there or do anything. On the summer-day event, we actually arrived at Partsi lake first, and then headed to Võhandu river as we needed to drop our luggage.

2. Activities we did

As for the activities, the main activity was rafting in the Võhandu river. It was my first time rafting, and I had an impression of “we just go down the river by boat”, which was excessive optimism.

We were splitted into two groups, and I joined the second one. However, while we were going forward, we accidentally overtook the first group on the way to the goal, and since then we had competitively gone forward to progress as fast as possible. Besides, rafting required lots of physical power. Therefore, it was so hard to row a boat.

Furthermore, it got me pretty wet. I believe it wouldn’t be too uncomfortable if you wear swimwear under the shorts and the tshirt. I personally didn’t bring any digital devices by the way. (There was a pocket in front of the rafting jacket though.)

It took us two hours to reach the goal by rafting itself. When arriving at the goal, and getting off the boat, my body was so stiff. The following day, of course I got muscular pain. 😉

Also, there was no femininity seen from my side. (I enjoyed myself though.)

Later we heard that one of my previous colleagues who brought her phone for rafting checked the map while rafting, and the Võhandu river was actually connected to Latvia.

It might have been fun if we just went to Latvia with that small boat.

😂

We also experienced sup boarding after coming back to Partsi lake where our accommodation was from Võhandu river. It was actually quite a relaxing activity. If you are afraid of falling down into water, you will fail. ✌️

By the way, it was my first time swimming in the lake (though I have done it in the sea and rivers), and I was so surprised that water in Partsi lake was so black. One of the other previous colleagues and I googled later, and we found that it was not because of something chemical but natural. I remember the flashing water in the toilet was coloured too…

The accommodation beside Partsi lake had a tiny sauna and jacuzzi (?)/ a small warm pool (?) as well.

We laughed ridiculously a lot and enjoyed ourselves a lot, so I guess it could be an option for your private vacation plan in summer. It seems glamping is also possible. Since I personally don’t like camping, and want a proper bed to sleep in, I didn’t do it. I can sleep while camping, but it’s just continuously uncomfortable the whole night.

3. Accommodation

The accommodation beside Partsi lake seemed to have both a small house and a big house. It seemed we were supposed to occupy the big house with a larger group, and yet suddenly there were lots of cancellations due to sickness, etc, so we all stayed in the rooms on the second floor only. (Or maybe originally only the second floor, but there were still lots of empty beds.)

Each room has four or five beds, and that bed was quite small even for me who was 162 cm tall in order to move during the sleep. (In addition, because of rafting my arms were too tired, so it was difficult to fall asleep even though I was physically tired.)

In summer there are lots of insects (particularly flies and mosquitoes) in Estonia, so we closed our room window during the night, but luckily it was not hot as it was cold summer in July, 2022.

The accommodation’s bathrooms were shared (but of course separated for men and women!), and there are a few more toilets outside. For some reason, there were two showers in one shower room for women… There were also bottles of shampoo, conditioner as well as showergell.

As for meals at the accommodation, we had lunch on the day we arrived there, dinner, and breakfast the following morning. Also, they provide us with lots of snacks.

It appeared to be fine to bring alcoholic drinks, but I’m not so sure.

Later we found that if we stay there with a group of more than 10 people, it costs only around 30 EUR for each person. The website says only “breakfast included”, so I have no idea on lunch or dinner. Anyways, it was way cheaper than I thought…

★Summary

The summer-day event I experienced in this company was only this time, but everything was much better than the one I had when I worked for Timbeter. The best point was there was no talk about customers or what we do daily, and no presentation for work. But I think this depends on the company you work for. I loved the point that work is work, leisure time is leisure time in this company. Whilst we had company events including this summer-day event, there was nothing about what to improve at work, how to approach in business, etc as the purpose was to have fun, not meetings outside of the office, or work-related training. The balance is important indeed.

I have no idea if any other European countries have this sort of summer-day event.

However, anyways I believe anyone can do what we experienced in our summer-day event. There were few people in those areas, so if you are fed up with cities and famous/popular places in Estonia, perhaps you should go there.

Aitäh! 🙂

Zooks Goes to Spa in Tartu.

ZooksLeave a comment

Tere!

It’s been almost 5 years since I came to Estonia, but one of the things that I had never tried was a spa experience!

Estonia is famous for saunas, and locals love them too. Waterparks called veekeskus are here and there in Estonia, and of course there are also several in Tallinn.

This time I went to V Spa in Tartu. I still don’t know why my boyfriend chose it though. V spa is a spa with a hotel (or a hotel with a spa?). We went there not as a day trip, but stayed there.

Also it was my first time staying at a hotel since I left Japan in 2017…

I was worried in a sense because the petrol price had been increasing (and not I but he had to drive), but we went there by car. It takes around two hours by car from Tallinn to Tartu.

When I went to Tartu previously, I took a train, so for me it kind of felt special.

In a while after leaving Tallinn, he said

Fuck!!!

What!?

I forgot my backpack!!!

Really!!???

We had already proceeded a lot since we left Tallinn, so we gave up his luggage.

We continued driving because we stayed there only one night and nothing but swimwear was extremely important.

We kept driving, but we realised that there was no petrol station with a store and a cafe for a while since we left Tallinn. Basically there was one road, and on the route to Tartu we needed to drive for a while until we reached the petrol station.

Then I realised that on a highway (?) in Estonia there is no payment gate! Literally there was one road basically, and there were trees, houses and factories on the sides, as well as no gate to pay for the use of a highway like ones in Japan.

Around two hours later, we arrived in the centre of Tartu. The hotel was part of a shopping centre, and the first and second floors of the underground were for parking.

After checking in at the hotel, we went to the shopping centre to buy his swimwear, but at a sports shop in the shopping centre there was nothing good and the price was approximately 40 EUR. He eventually decided to buy one at the spa, but then we also reliased that

we both didn’t bring flip-flops.

For me it was the first time to go to a spa, so I didn’t even think that we needed such things. We both bought pairs at the spa.

I had one pair at home, so now I have two pairs…

Since the spa is connected to the hotel, we could change the clothes at our hotel room, and enter the spa with the robes that we had in the room.

What we booked was a room at the hotell, access to the spa and the sauna world as well as a buffet breakfast at the hotel.

When entering the spa, there were lockers, and you can put your stuff there. We also brought towels from the hotel room. You don’t need to bring your own keys like a padlock because you can get an access key like a watch shape. We got ours at the hotel reception. You can lock and unlock the locket with it.

After that, you need to take a shower before entering the spa. The shower rooms are separate for men and women of course.

After taking a shower, I got in the pool, but it was a bit cold, so we went to one of the saunas.

In the first sauna, there was a TV for kids for some reason.

The pool is not just a regular pool. It hs a massage section with jets, jacuzzis, and a fun spot under the bridge on the pool with water flows. (I had fun with this.) Outside of the spa, there was a hot jacuzzi, but all the jacuzzi were too full to try.

In this spa there is a place called salt world (I don’t know what it is), and a place called sauna world. We could access the sauna world, so we tried several including a Finnish sauna.

Of course there is a cold water pool. It was as cold as ice for me so I didn’t try but he did.

After experiencing the Finnish sauna, we were both kind of dizzy, so we took a break and left the spa.

I think we had been in the spa for two hours or so.

After we took showers and dried well, we went back to our hotel room.

We couldn’t move for a while… I realised that water took our physical energy. It had been a while to swim or even to soak myself in the water in public. I also finally wore swimwear that I bought in winter 2021.

We were relaxing and watching a TV in a hotel room, but we got hungry, so we bought some poke in the shopping centre.

After that, we were just e\relaxing on the bed.

We got so tired, so we just prepared to sleep and slept.

We realised in the next morning, but we both slept like babies.

I got hungry after waking up, and we went to the buffet. However, I had been on a ketogenic diet for two weeks until the Friday of that week, avoiding carbohydrate-main products, so I had no idea what to eat. I selected randomly, but the amount was too little, so I got hungry immediately again.

When we checked in, the receptionist told us that we could go to the spa from 9 to 12 on the day we needed to check out, and I wanted to try a jacuzzi after the breakfast, but he was too tired to go, so I gave up that idea.

We were relaxing, watching a TV in the hotel room, and then we headed back to Tallinn.

This was my first spa experience, and I enjoyed it a lot, but for sure it’s not a place that you should go only by yourself.

And I didn’t take any pictures.

Aitäh! 🙂

Zooks Goes to Viljandi.

ZooksLeave a comment

Tere!

On 22 of July 2021, I visited a small town in the south of Estonia called Viljandi!

From Tallinn you can go there by train. (Maybe there are busses, but I didn’t consider it at all this time.)

Recently I got a card called Work Ability Card issued. I will write the details about it in the future though. (I didn’t spontaneously issue one, and I didn’t know that such a card existed until I got one.) The card indicates my work ability; either I can work partially or not at all.

Then I found that I can use that card when buying a train ticket on Elron which is an Estonian railroad. I usually bought regular tickets on Elron so far, but this time I bought discounted tickets.

This discount is applied to pensioners, those who are disabled, and someone who can work partially or not at all. If you buy such a ticket, you need to show the certificate on the train. In my case I would need to show my Work Ability Card. (You can read more about it here.)

It takes a couple of hours from Tallinn to Viljandi. However, Viljandi doesn’t have many sightseeing places, due to which I bought round tickets, selecting the time when I could arrive in Tallinn in the pre-evening. A regular one-way ticket costs 7 euro, and yet my discount ticket cost about 5 euro, so 10 euro in total.

Table of Contents
Arrival in Viljandi
To the Main Destinations
Cafe Viljandi
Legend
Others

★Arrival in Viljandi

I planned to go to some sightseeing places, have lunch, take some break, and go home after spending approximately two hours on the train.

One of the surprising facts about Viljandi is that there are (relatively) more slopes. Compared to my hometown, those were just hills, but in contrast to Tallinn there were a few more steep slopes in Viljandi.

The first destination was Kondase Keskus. This is an art museum, but this time I wasn’t that interested in it, so I took a photo of the statue of the strawberry in front of the entrance.

To be honest, I went there just because I wanted to see this strawberry. In fact, such strawberries are here and there in Viljandi, and as far as I know, there was one in the station and near a hotel.

I don’t know what its concept is.

★To the Main Destinations

In Viljandi, there is an abandoned castle as well as a bridge on a hill. I wanted to go there, but I couldn’t because there was a festival on the hill.

Just in case, I asked a festival staff at one of the entrances whether the castle and the bridge are in the festival area. She said yes, and I thought:






Why did I freaking come to Viljandi…?




I was so shocked.

This is because those were my main purposes, I like castles, and the bridge seemed beautiful.

It was still 10.30ish, so many cafes and restaurants around the hill were still closed. Thus it wasn’t straightforward to find an open cafe.

★Cafe Viljandi

Then I managed to find one called Cafe Viljandi. That day I had freelance work, which had to be done on the train, so I had my laptop.

I changed my plan; I would drink something and do some work on my computer.

The inside was so empty (of course), so I got a huge table just for me. I looked up the menu and found “Viljandi Beer”.

I want to try it!

Then I ordered.





Sorry no.




I think she meant that they couldn’t serve alcohol owing to the time.

That day I woke up at 6.00 for the first time in a while, and I was already hungry, so I forgot but it wasn’t even 11 am at that time.

I couldn’t go to the hill, and couldn’t order a beer…

I was shocked and even more shocked. 

Anyway I needed to order something, wondering about what to get, and I found Irish coffee for only 4 euro!

This is really cheap. Even in Tallinn Irish coffee costs at least 6 euro. What is more, in Ireland it should cost at least 6-7 euro.

So Irish coffee in Viljandi is really cheap!

It was a great opportunity though other types of coffee were cheaper, I ordered Irish coffee.

My review is:






There was little whiskey in it.




I think it was cheap as they didn’t use much whiskey.

Then I was about to work on my laptop, asking a staff about WiFi, and she said:






We don’t have WiFi.




No way!

For the first time ever, I heard there was no WiFi in a cafe in Estonia…

I think this is not good as a town in Estonia…

They should have WiFi in a cafe if they have WiFi in the woods.

My review on Viljandi was getting so low.

I gave up working online, so I wrote a draft of this article on Word.

Then in my mind I thought:






I would never come to Vlijandi again.

This is because this trip was the worst ever. (Poland is also a travel destination that I would never go again except for the purpose of necessity or Auschwitz.)

By the way, I have been to Tartu, Pärnu. Rakvere, and Narva in terms of destinations in Estonia. Rakvere and Tartu were the best ones.

Of course Viljandi is the worst one.

★Legend

After spending some time in the cafe, I went to a restaurant called Legend as I was hungry.

They have terrace seats, but it seemed those were somewhere slightly far from the restaurant, and I wasn’t aware of it, getting a seat inside.

I wanted WiFi anyway.

I went to the counter and checked the menu, but it seemed available only in Estonian. However, I could understand at least the menu, so it wasn’t problematic for me.

I chose a burger that shouldn’t be untasty. Here’s some fact; in Estonia there are so many burger shops. If you want to eat out, burgers are available pretty anywhere.

Considering that, I thought I was lucky to be Japanese because there are a lot of types of dishes, with which we can enjoy different cultures. We can do this only in Japan. (But perhaps so is China.)

Then the burger was served; it had an ordinary look.

The taste was ordinary too. No good, but no bad. The ingredients were ordinary as well.

I can’t make any more comments about it.

There were chips aside, and a cup of mayonnaise for them.

I know the Estonians love mayonnaise.

It’s not rare to have mayonnaise as a default sauce for appetizers everywhere.






However I don’t like mayonnaise.




It’s said that the Western people like Japanese mayonnaise, but personally the Japanese mayonnaise is the worst. For me European mayonnaise is better. But still I can’t take it unless it’s used for egg salad sandwiches, tuna sandwiches or sauce for a burger.

Anyway, I dipped a few chips with mayonnaise, but not more than that. The chips were salty enough.

★Others

After spending one hour at the restaurant, I went to Coop which is a supermarket usually in relatively rural areas. I looked for Viljandi beer but there was nothing.

I didn’t have anything to do, so I headed to the station.

I was walking, thinking:






I don’t want to live in such a countryside.

Though I’m from the countryside.

Maybe this is because I don’t have local friends there, and just didn’t know about fun places.

Besides, when I was walking, following the Google map, I found the main road was under construction, and got a cloud of dust. What a bad day.

I stayed in Viljandi for about five hours, which was long enough.

If you are interested in Viljandi, just try. For me a day trip was satisfactory enough.

I rather want to go abroad.

あー外国へ行きたい。

Aitäh! 😊

Zooks Goes to Keila Waterfall in Estonia.

ZooksLeave a comment

Tere!

There were hot days with around 30 degrees in Estonia even in July 2021. Usually there are only a couple of days with 30 degrees in Estonia, and it happens in June. I was planning to go to Keila waterfall, but I was unwilling to do it under the strong sun. However, for a few reasons, I changed the plan, and did go to Keila waterfall!

Keila waterfall isn’t that far from Tallinn city centre. You can go to Keila waterfall if you have some free hours because there is nothing but a supermarket around Keila waterfall.

I actually have wanted to go to Keila waterfall for a long time, and I thought of going there last summer when all of my travel plans were cancelled due to COVID-19. However, probably because of the fatigue from work, I was uneager to go although I planned instead.

This time I planned to go to Keila waterfall on one Tuesday in July. That Monday was less hot, but it seemed to rain, so I chose Tuesday. However, it didn’t rain at all, and it was all sunny. Plus, it was reported that it would be more than 30 degrees again on that Tuesday, so I decided to go to Keila waterfall when it was less hot and more comfortable.

To go to Keila waterfall, you can take just one bus basically. Also there are multiple bus options.

I knew that there’s (almost) nothing around Keila waterfall, so my plan was to see the waterfall, and that’d be it. Fortunately there were busses that were suitable for my plan.

First of all, I took a bus from the town. To go to Keila waterfall, I chose bus 108 at around 3 pm. You need to get on from the front of the bus, and tell the bus driver where you want to go. (In this case, tell them “Keila-Joa”.)

It costs 2.30 euro.

I think it cost 3 euro when I went to Rummu. I can’t remember properly though. You can google-translate to read this article about Rummu.

After enjoying approximately one hour on the bus, I got off at the bus stop called Keila-Joa. Then I walked to the waterfall, which took less than 10 minutes.

I was wondering about where the waterfall was, though I could hear the water-falling sound. Then I realised that I was not walking toward the waterfall but walking along the water running direction. (I was walking using a map, so it wasn’t a mistake.)

In other words, there was the waterfall when I looked back.

I spent about one hour, being relaxed with negative ions.

When going back to the city centre, you can take a bus from the bus stop opposite to the one that you got off when arriving there.

The return bus was not 108 but 127. The route was a bit different, but it stopped at the bus stop that is 10 minutes by foot from my place, so I chose it.

Of course, the return ride cost 2.30 euro, too.

By the way, Keila waterfall is said to be the third biggest waterfall in Estonia. (I read it somewhere but I don’t know the source.) However, it didn’t look that big. This is so Estonian though.

Jagala waterfall that I went to with my friend three years ago was bigger!

But at least I could be relaxed, I think.

When you come to Estonia, and have a little time, consider going to Keila waterfall.

Aitäh! 🙂

Zooks Visits Tartu. (1)

ZooksLeave a comment

Tere!

As my friends know, I love travelling although I normally don’t travel the city or country that I live (since I always think “I can go whenever I want because I live here”). However, this time I couldn’t go anywhere I wanted to go to, so I visited my friend in Tartu! This was my first visit to Tartu in these three years since I came to Estonia.

I took a two-week long annual leave before my work calendar year ended, and spent the first two days of the leave for travelling around in Tartu. Therefore this time the article is about my trip to Tartu. (There will be separately two articles.)

Table of Contents
1) To Tartu by train
2) Walking around in the old town in Tartu
3) KGB museum in Tartu
4) Lunch in Tartu
5) AHHAA Science Centre in Tartu
6) Dinner in Tartu

1) To Tartu by train

At that time I had a routine to wake up just one or half an hour before starting working even though it was summer. My train to Tartu was leaving at 8.10 in the morning. I woke up at 6.30 in the morning for the first time in a while.

I took a trolley at around seven, heading to the Tallinn station (Balti jaam). In addition to waking up early, I had a breakfast for the first in ages too. I had it before the train was about to leave. After that a lady came to me to check the ticket. 

I bought the ticket online beforehand, so I simply showed the QR code to her. If not in your case, you could buy one at the ticket office or from the ticket checker. According to the website, it’s cheaper to buy the ticket online.

There are also buses from Tallinn to Tartu, but at that time the bus ticket was a bit more expensive, so I chose the train. Besides perhaps it was because of the early morning on Saturday, the seats were quite empty.

There was no trouble on the way to Tartu. After spending two hours on the train, I arrived in Tartu.

The train station in Tartu was a proper (?) train platform unlike Balti jaam in Tallinn. 


2) Walking around in the old town in Tartu

My friend and I met at the Tartu station, and we straight headed to the old town. It takes 15 to 20 minutes by walk from the station to the old town in Tartu. Also it is enjoyable to walk there because you can see “Tartu’s banksy’s” pictures here and there.

Although I had many places that I wanted to go in Tartu, I couldn’t decide which one  to go first, so we firstly went to the botanical. When hearing “botanical garden”, you may imagine colourful and a huge variety of flours and plants. (At least I imagined like that.) However, when we went there. It was just all green.

But the botanical garden is quite big, so we walked around, talking. Then we headed to Tartu Dome Church. While Tartu is a small city, the dome was pretty big. It was an exercise to go up there since I was used to the flat city of Tallinn and the dome was on the hill.


3) KGB museum in Tartu

Next we went to the KGB museum. Of course Tallinn also has a KGB museum, but I personally have never been there though I have lived in Tallinn for three years. I had been to only the one in Lithuania, Vilnius. It was quite realistic.

The KGB museum in Tartu is a bit far from the old town and really small, being located in the place that is difficult to find. The address of the KGB museum is Riia street but the museum itself is not faced to the road but faced Papleri street that makes an intersection.

There is a small door on the street and another door that goes to downstairs. It was the KGB cell so it was literally narrow. On the downstairs there is a ticket office, and the ticket for an adult cost 5 euro on the one hand, it cost 2 euro or something for a student on the other hand.

The museum is divided into two parts; the permanent exhibition and the temporary one. We went to the temporary exhibition first. At that time the theme of the exhibition was helmets, where we could have worn a real one (though we didn’t try).

After that, we went to the permanent exhibition.

I omit what we saw because I don’t want to ruin your joy (?), but my comment is that it was a really creepy place.

On the contrary, I recommend there to those who want to know the background history during the Soviet era and general tourists.


4) Lunch in Tartu

After enjoying (?) exhibition at the KGB museum, we went to a German restaurant. 

It’s called Restaurant München.

It looked like a tiny restaurant that was half underground, but the inside was actually spacious. I remembered the German cuisine that I had in Germany last autumn while looking for the places to eat on the map. 

What I had is Schnitzel with onions and sauerkraut.

It was small but it was good. It cost around 8 euro.

We also ordered beer. The dark beer on the right is what I had, which was a small size. The left one is what my friend ordered, which was a medium size but looks huge.

Normally I go to cheaper places to eat, so I thought it cost more in Tartu to eat at a restaurant than in Tallinn, but the potion is big, so it wasn’t that expensive. Since Tartu doesn’t seem to have anything local in terms of food, I recommend you to go to Restaurant München if you have no idea where to eat in Tartu. (Besides it’s in the old town.)


5) AHHAA Science Centre in Tartu

After having lunch, we went to my friend’s place and discussed where to go next. I wanted to go to AHHAA Science Centre, but it costs 13 euro for an adult so I gave up. AHHAA Science Centre has a 360-degree planetarium, which  costs additional fee.

I wanted to go to the upside down house called Tagurpidi Maja, but it didn’t seem that my friend was not interested and she was rather interested in the 360-degree planetarium at AHHAA Science Centre. Eventually we figured out that it seemed to be possible to visit only the planetarium, so we decided to go there.

It didn’t seem that the planetarium had a student price, and it cost five euro for an adult. There was no English description either, and show was in Estonian, Russian or Latvian depending on the timetable. 

The receptionist at AHHAA Science Centre told us to wait for an hour, so we just kept talking to spend time.

We went to the reception again 15 minutes before the show, and another staff member took us to the planetarium. After spending some time again there, we could enter the planetarium. There were three-row seats, but I perhaps recommend to choose the first row because you may feel more 360 degree there.

Before the show the staff alarmed, but it was only in Estonian. It seemed that it was not permitted to eat but drinking water was fine. The most important point before the show was to close the eyes if getting nauseous while watching the show since the resolution is too high. I might have been used to such things at Universal Studios in Japan so I was fine indeed, but my friend seemed to get nauseous at some points.


6) Dinner in Tartu

After the planetarium, it was already before eight in the evening or something, so we just headed to a restaurant.

We went to an Italian restaurant, La Dolce Vita, which is also in the old town.

It kind of took time to make a decision as there were many types of pizzas! And again, I thought it was a bit expensive, but the pizza was huge. (I felt that maybe also because I was wearing a pair of high-waist skinny jeans.) If you are an adult and not a small eater, you perhaps can finish the whole pizza.)

At the end of day 1, I stayed at my friend’s place. (In return I gave her a box of Lithuanian chocolate.) That was a long day but with full of joy.

That’s all about my day 1 in Tartu. The next article will be about day 2!

Aitäh! 🙂