A Winter Wonderland

Posted by & filed under Travel Country: Estonia.

22./10/2010

Well, if I thought that the little snow shower last night was it, I was wrong. It was snowing heavily when I woke up and practically snowed for the rest of the day. I was thinking to myself, that it would be great to get stuck here for another day. And if it keeps snowing like this, then there could be a possibility of that. Hopefully! I had checked the weather forecast before I left Amsterdam and it did forecast snow on Thursday evening but not on Friday. I think the forecast was a day late. It was lovely though, like a winter wonderland.

Yesterday I spotted another little passageway near St. Catherine’s Passage, on Vene, with a lot of craft shops, so I wanted to head over in that direction. Today was a day for chilling, reading/cinema. I’d done a lot of walking over the last few days, so I decided I’d TRY to take it a bit easier today.

I needed food so I went into a different cafe on the square. This restaurant was a more modern one and God, their tomato soup was to die for! I also ordered the warm chicken salad, which was only ok. I’d have a double portion of soup the next time if I go back there.

While I was eating, a woman came in, who I mistakenly took as being Irish. But after I came back from the loo, I went over to her and asked her where she was from. She was from New Zealand actually, from Nelson. She was over here in discussions with Estonian publishers because they wanted her to publish her book in Estonian. The book is about her life and had just been published. It’s called “Married to a Bedouin”. She lives in Jordan and was married to a bedouin but he passed away recently. She was leaving tomorrow and was enjoying the free day and the winter weather before she went back.

One unusual feature of this restaurant was its upstairs toilet. I know not many people want to hear about toilets and it’s sort of a forbidden subject, but this one was so different I just have to mention it. As soon as you open the door, it looks like you’re stepping into a chimney stack. The walls, made of brick looked like they were covered in tar or soot and when you looked up, the ceiling just got narrower and narrower and it was sealed at the top. But there was a very modern toilet, sink and mirror with flowers in a vase. It was the weirdest toilet I’d ever seen!

I left and made my way to the craft shops near St. Catherine’s Passage. There were 4 different shops, some ceramic, some selling just wooden souvenirs. In the same alleyway, there is a chocolate cafe called “Chocolat de Pierre”. I didn’t go in, but maybe I should have, just to experience it.

The Adam Ericson museum on Luhike Jalg was one museum I wanted to visit. It sounded interesting. The artist is Estonian and in his lifetime did a mixture of paintings, ceramics and leatherworks. It was 30 EEK to get in, which wasn’t too bad. I liked his paintings, they kind of reminded me a bit of Van Gogh’s work but I especially liked his leatherwork. He had a stroke in 1955 and recovered and learned to paint again, this time with his left hand.

I finally got to the cafe on top of the town wall at the Danish King’s Courtyard.They have a small cafe inside but there are also a few tables outside, lit by candlelight, where you can soak up the atmosphere and the beautiful views at dusk. I got myself a mulled wine and caught up on my journal. It was cold but really nice. I had just bought myself a pair of woolen gloves with green, yellow and red stitching in on the fingertips. About time, as my own gloves were falling apart at the seams, with bits of threads springing from every stitch practically!

I went for food to a really nice restaurant on Vene called Elevant – I think Estonian for elephant. There was a plaque outside with a picture of an elephant anyway. The restaurant was one floor up and split into two sides, one dining room each side of the hallway. I took the left dining room and surprisingly for a Friday night, it wasn’t too crowded. There were a few free tables and they gave me a quiet table at the back but within view of the rest of the restaurant. The decor was modern but you could tell that the building was old as the plaster was crumbling away a bit on the edges of the walls. Anyway I ordered the chicken curry and actually it was the best meal I’d had. It even beat the Peppersack restaurant. The curry wasn’t too spicy, thankfully. They served vegetable rice with it and a sort of Estonian nan bread. God it was gorgeous.

I wandered over to Clayhills bar afterwards as I’d read in one of the tourist brochures that there was live music on here too, starting at 10pm. I sat at the bar and the band started up shortly after. It was jazz music again, which I like. There was a cute looking saxophone player, really tall, dark and lanky, a guy playing the electric guitar and two women playing the keyboards, bass and percussion. They were good but it was more of the older style jazz and more easy listening music compared to the jazz in Clazz. Still it was nice. I got talking to this Australian guy, who was on holiday here for a few days and he told me he rode motorbikes. He wanted to go to the TT racing in the Isle of Man next year. But because it’s going to be the centenary year of the races next year, he said that it was all sold out. He also told me within the first five minutes of the conversation that he was divorced!

The band played 3 sets and at around 12am, the bar was emptying out. I left after they finished the third set. It was a chilled evening.