Our first full day in Tallinn started like the other previous day's this week. Following breakfast we boarded our coach for a 4 hour sightseeing tour of the city. The first stop was at the singing festival performance ampitheatre where we first observed their memorial wall to the prior festivals. These singing festivals which attract 10's of thousands of participants every 5 years are a national treasure of the Baltic states. The choir climbed up there and sang a few songs to the appreciative other groups who were also visiting the festival grounds. With the terrific acoustics, the choir could easily be heard in the back rows some several thousand feet away. We concluded the tour with a guided walk through the Old City. Highlights of that walk included a visit to a Russian Ortodox Cathedral whose interior and religious articles were covered in gold. Unfortunately no pictures were permitted. There was a nice viewpoint, and all of the streets are cobblestone. The group posed for a group photo on one of the stairways and soon we were left to wander on our own.
We grabbed a quick lunch as we planned to meet an Indian friend who happened to be in town on vacation. We found Chanderjeet at the Indian restaurant and enjoyed a few minutes with him before Angela had to leave for choir practice and I headed off to visit the Occupation Museum.
I spent much of the rest of my afternoon at the museum getting steeped in the occupation history of Estonia while Angela had an unscheduled practice. The group enjoyed a nice buffet dinner at a local brew house after which we walked back to the hotel and over to the Radisson Blu to enjoy a rooftop view of the sunset which was well after 10pm. While we were enjoying the views, a sudden rainstorm came up and chased us all inside. To get back to our hotel it appeared that we would get drenched. But I spotted a pedicab, and off we went; and arrived dry back at our hotel ready to retire for the evening.
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