June 20
Another bus, another Eastern European country. This time we landed in Estonia – our last stop before the World Cup!!
For the past few months, we’ve had a handful of people tell us that Estonia has great craft beer. That’s not really something that we’re interested in, but when in Rome…
Once we got settled in, we headed out for dinner at a place that served local cuisine. It was delicious and beautifully displayed. I had some sort of fish dish that was one of the better things I’ve eaten in recent months.
Michael had braised elk which was also good, but not as good as what I had going on.
The real gem of the meal, though was this cider.
Actual the real gem may have been our waitress. She was great. She talked through everything we were ordering and gave great recommendations. Plus when I ordered the cider, she was excited about it and when she brought it back for me, she gave me the story that accompanies it.
Apparently, its a small, local producer who uses 50% apples from Estonia and 50% from Latvia. This is why the cider is called Ieva. Ieva is the name of the former First Lady of Estonia (until October of 2016). But she’s from Latvia. Hence her being the perfect mascot for a cider that is made of apples from both countries.
When you see the back of the label, you can see she’s holding a bow tie. Her husband is famous for wearing bow ties.
Seriously – how great is our waitress, whose name is apparently Hedvig!
After dinner we climbed some stairs to get a better view of the city.
What about this view! The big church in the back with the black and green roof is St. Olaf’s church. They like warm hugs and summer in there.
Also – how much do I love this?
So much! Which is why I had to pull out my camera to capture it. 😏
Another beautiful Old Town:
The above is the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, an orthodox cathedral. How incredible is that?
Other than wandering around and exploring, we found a place to watch some football.
Pretty cool setup, don’t you think?
We’ve done a super fast tour of a bunch of Eastern European countries, but now it’s time to get to St. Petersburg, hang out for a week and see some live games!