Tag: Tartu

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 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! 🙂