Tallinn, Estonia

In Helsinki, locals love to hop a ferry to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia to do a little cross-border shopping. But never mind the cheap alcohol, the city dates to 1050 and it's brimming with Russian dumpling shops, hand woven linen, and juniper cooking utensils. And all are housed in crumbling, pastel-coloured stucco buildings. I loved the slow pace and pedestrian-dominated cobblestone roads, yet we both found the whole trip surprisingly touristy. We stuck to the side streets to avoid the throngs of weekending Finns, and ended up finding seal meat pate in the local grocery store, a bakery selling glazed marzipan figurines, and a grassy park overlooking a busy artery running through the more modern part of Tallinn.

The city gates at the bottom of a grassy hill called Toompea.

Fried potato balls with garlic sauce for lunch.

Estonian pancakes filled with mushrooms, onions, and blue cheese from Kompressor, a pancake house that makes a popular hangover hangout with the locals.

A fine bit of kitch. Adam exclaimed, 'Are they jokes?' To which I replied: 'George W. is no laughing matter.'

At last, a rest.

Estonian grafitti. At least it doesn't use the Cyrillic alphabet, but that certainly doesn't mean we can read it.