Taking random paths while travelling is one of my favourite pastimes. In Tallinn, the old city does tend to grow on you after a couple of days. For someone afflicted with the golden-age syndrome, the old city can be overwhelming. Lest you are determined to discover some portal that will take you back a few centuries, like Owen Wilson’s character in Midnight in Paris, I’d say it would be a good idea to get out of the fortified old town of Tallinn.
Estonia is a sparsely populated nation of just 1.3 million inhabitants. Tallinn, its capital city, is where a third of that population lives. And still, there were only pockets of places where I could find a crowd. I can’t put my finger on it, but wherever I went in Tallinn, there was this thought at the back of my mind always: “Tallinn is on the verge of becoming a hotspot, give it five years.” The possibilities for that happening were palpable, outside its main tourist draw.
After exploring the Kalamaja neighbourhood, with its Soviet-era wooden houses, I was longing to check out the sea-facing portion of Tallinn. According to Google Maps, I wasn’t too far from the shore. I followed the Maps, in the direction of the light blue area close to a spot called Kalarand — the Baltic sea. Its first sight just filled me with immense happiness. All the exhaustion from the five hours of walking done before that, kind of evaporated. I always feel at home in any city, which has access to a water body in the form of a lake, river or a sea. It just gives me some much needed extra energy after I am weary from travel. Blame it on growing up in Mumbai, with its access to the sea. I’m at sea when I am in land-locked areas.
The beach or rather the sandy portion of the shore, looked like it hadn’t or wouldn’t in the near future, at least, see any major development. But sitting there on a warm by breezy July afternoon, was probably a good decision after hours of walking in the Old Town. There weren’t many people around. Two grannies, who could be tourists or locals, just sitting together but staring into the horizon. Not speaking a word to each other. Another youngster just parked his bike behind me, and took out his laptop. The calm sea with its waves lapping by the shore gave him the perfect lo-fi ambient sound to focus on his pending work. A father-son duo were sitting on the rocks ahead, with the son trying to play the stone surfing game.
When I parked myself there along with these people, the atmosphere looked dramatic in the sky. I wasn’t carrying any umbrella on me and was afraid that it would pour any moment. But it was a good idea to stay on, as the sun was out soon enough.
The promenades were not neatly demarcated and there were a lot of pods which had rusted iron bars exposed. The aqua blue of the water was wonderfully complementing the royal blue sky, which was impregnated with clouds. In the far distance, I could make out some boats and a cruiseliner.
As for me, I was reflecting on the time spent during my close to three month fellowship stint in Germany. I felt like writing something, but decided against it. At that moment, I just wanted to be present with nothing to do. In the now. There would be enough opportunities to put pen to paper later. After ages, I had taken a vacation where I had no agenda for the rest of the next couple of days as I had stretched what could easily be done in three days to almost five days.
After around 30 minutes of just sitting there and doing nothing, other than watching the waves, I continued the onward journey along the shoreline on the left first, and then on to the right. I passed by the Seaplane museum, but I really did not have the mental agility to do a museum tour after that 30 minute break at a random run down beach. If I had a bike, I would have carried on further, but knowing the frequency of the buses here, I did not want to take any chance walking more than I had for the day.
While exploring around the shore, I came across a gate which had a tiny opening. I looked in and saw a glimpse of an abandoned place. It piqued my curiosity and I decided to check out the place later. I never did that, and while writing this blog post when I looked up the map, I realised that I had missed out on seeing an important slice of Estonian history — the Patarei Prison.
No, I don’t regret not seeing it. It was just meant to be a chill day after all.
More from the Tallinn trip: Vana Tallinn
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