Walking the Limestone Link: Kirkby Lonsdale to Arnside

Cumbria

The Limestone Link is a waymarked footpath crossing 20km of south Cumbrian limestone. Its 500m of climbing are enough to raise the heartbeat and respiration rate but overall it is a relatively easy yet interesting day’s walk. The waymarking, though, was not as good as we had been led to believe and some shrewd guesswork was called for - along with a little wandering around searching for stiles.

Lynne and Hilary dropped Brian and I off at Devil’s Bridge in Kirkby Lonsdale around 9.30. The morning was full of promise, though exactly what it promised was obscure, but probably included rain.



Devil's Bridge, Kirkby Lonsdale

The bridge, a handsome structure dating from the 1430s, is one of five ‘Devil’s Bridges’ in Britain - and there over a hundred more ‘Ponts du Diable’ and ‘Teufelsbrucken’ scattered around Europe. They usually have an associated myth; in the Kirkby Lonsdale version, the devil offered to build the bridge in return for the soul of the first to cross it. When it was finished, an old woman threw a piece of bread across and her dog chased after it, so cheating the devil.

To minimise any residual risk to our immortal souls, we walked away from the river, up a steadily rising field boundary to High Biggins, which is neither particularly high not particularly big. A stroll along the lane took us past Biggins Hall, which sounds grand but is no more than a pleasant family home.

Once clear of the village we left the road, navigating across the fields from stile to stile. As usual, this method worked well until we reached an area where modern farming methods have required a wholesale removal of field boundaries. We thought we knew where we were, and could see a worn path leading up the hill opposite in the direction we wanted to go, but if the pile of stones to our left was, or once had been, Longfield Barn then the turning was not quite in the right place.

A fingerpost suggested the trod up the hill was indeed a footpath, so we made our ascent. There was no stile at the top, but as the wall had become vestigial this hardly mattered. We continued over the grassy tussocks of the broad flat summit until we met a more substantial wall – one that was above head height.

The map suggested a crossing point near the top of the right hand scarp, but we could not find it. We wandered along the wall. It was untidily built and in several places protruding stones might have been intended as a stile, but were not matched by stones on the other side. Looking over at one such place we found ourselves beside Longfield Tarn, which should have been well to the left of the crossing point. A little further on we found three projecting stones, matched by three more on the far side. The stile was several hundred metres from where we had expected, but it did the job.

Down to Hutton Roof

Once over, our descent to Hutton Roof was simple. We entered the village by a lane, crossed the road and started the climb up Hutton Roof Crags, the first substantial area of limestone of the walk.

A rocky path led up through a wood, giving us several choices of route. This is open access land and there was no waymarking, so we guessed. The map shows the Limestone Link following the northern edge of the crags, so that was where we headed, soon exchanging the rocky climb for a gentle stroll up a grassy path.



The grassy path up Hutton Crags
with Wernside and Pen-y-Ghent in the background

 The path stayed just below the crags and at its highest point we paused for coffee. The view was impressive; back to the east the outlines of Whernside, and Pen-y-Ghent marked out the Yorkshire Dales, to the north we could see the massive bare humps of the Howgill Fells, while nearer at hand we looked down on the limestone littered Newbiggin Crags and Holmepark Fell, the next stage of our walk.



Newbiggin Crags and Holmepark Fell

We descended towards Holmepark Fell, the sides of the path lined with harebells, which appreciate the cool climate and well-drained, nutrient poor soil.



Harebell

Walking round the edge of Hutton Roof Crags meant we had avoided limestone blocks and pavements, but our path across the south of Holmepark Fell took us over and through some substantial stony areas before descending towards the M6.



Limestone on Holmepark Fell

An irritating three-sides-of-a-square detour was necessary to reach the village of Holme via a motorway bridge. Here we again turned west, crossing fields of cereals - and the west coast railway line - before reaching Pye Bridge Lane, which we followed to the King’s Arms beside the A6.



Across fields of cereals

Near the pub, we passed the boyhood home of John Taylor. I had never heard of him, but there was an informative plaque by the farm gate. Born in 1808, Taylor was brought up in the Church of England, became a Methodist at sixteen and then, after emigrating to Canada in 1830, joined the Church of the Latter Day Saints – the Mormons. He made is way to the USA and finally to Utah where in 1880 he succeeded Brigham Young as President of the Mormons. It seemed a long journey from the green farmland of southern Cumbria to the desert of Utah. He died the husband of seven wives and father of thirty-four children, so perhaps it was an even longer and stranger spiritual journey.

Despite earlier misgivings, the day had become steadily warmer and brighter. We sat outside the pub in pleasant sunshine and enjoyed an excellent beef sandwich and a couple of pints of refreshment.

Fortified, we crossed the road and headed up Hale Fell. In the woods, a jumble of limestone and a multitude of paths, some marked on the map, some just existing on the ground, made navigation difficult. There were way markers, but not enough to be confident and I was relieved when we emerged onto a minor road just below Slack Head rather than at a campsite or marble quarry.



Limestone Pavements

A little further on we returned to the woods where a clear path with a gentle gradient took us up towards Whin Scar.

We had been following fingerposts enigmatically marked ‘to the Fairy Steps.’ After leaving the top of Whin Scar and crossing some huge blocks of limestone we discovered what they are. The path off the plateau leads through a crack between two limestone blocks. It is a small descent, some three or four metres, and is aided by natural steps that have formed in the crack. According to legend if you climb the steps without touching either side, then the fairies will bless you and grant a wish. I am not sure if the offer also applies to the descent, but as the crack is less than 30cm wide at shoulder height and Brian is what Bill McLaren would have called ‘a solid citizen’ he reached the bottom resolutely unblessed. I, on the other hand, tend more towards the spherical. Even after removing my pack, I was in full and firm contact with both sides all the way down.



Brian descends the Fairy Steps

A broad, straight path took us down through Underlaid Wood. After the brilliant sunshine of an hour before, it had now started to drizzle and the wet veins of limestone obtruding into the path became treacherously slippery.



A broad, straight path through Underlaid Woods

We reached the minor road at Hazelslack Tower Farm, where they were busy silaging. We paused in the farmyard as huge vehicles brought in the cut grass and shifted it into a barn, where a smaller tractor ensured it was evenly distributed.



...a smaller tractor ensured it was evenly distributed.
Hazelslack Tower Farm

Across the road, Hazleslack Tower itself is attached to a dilapidated farmhouse. It is a peel tower, one of hundreds built across the north of England in the fifteenth century for protection against marauding Scots. Designed to withstand a short siege, livestock were accommodated on the ground floor while the defenders lodged above them. Many, like Hazelslack, have fallen into disrepair, some have been incorporated in to grander houses, such as Sizergh Castle, while others were used as quarries by local builders and have disappeared.



Hazelslack Tower

We traversed a campsite, solved a navigational problem and descended onto Arnside Moss. The final kilometre was easy walking. The salt marsh was not as boggy as the name implies but was fully exposed to the drizzle that was quietly transforming itself into steady rain.

Crossing the railway to the edge of Arnside we made our rendezvous with Lynne and Hilary at 4.10. We had spent an hour in the pub and ten minutes drinking coffee, so the 20km had taken us some five and half hours walking. Good enough for a couple of old blokes.

Morecambe Bay and Sunderland Point

A Huge and Sometimes Dangerous Bay, an Intermittant Island and an Unfortunate Young Man

[Addition 31/05/2014 at end]

Morecambe Bay and the 2004 Cockle Picking Disaster

Lancashire

I find the sight of Morecambe Bay both awe inspiring and unsettling. 300+ square kilometres of sand and mudflats is not only a vast expanse of nothing, it is an expanse of nothing with a strangely threatening air. And the threat is real. The quicksands are dangerous, but it is the tides that have been the great killer over the years. Amongst the highest in the world, they sweep in faster than a man can run. Sand bars that are almost undetectable by the naked eye are first cut off and then submerged. 23 Chinese cockle pickers, many of them illegal immigrants, died here in February 2004 when they were caught out by the tide.

Morecambe Bay as the tide comes in

The 2004 Gangmaster Licensing Act was a direct consequence of this disaster, but passing well-meaning legislation is easier than enforcing it. The cockle beds closed in 2005, more as a measure to conserve the cockles than the cockle pickers. They will reopen one day soon, and I hope they will be worked by local cocklers who have the skill and knowledge to do the job safely.

Sunderland Point

The Causeway

The River Lune flows into the bay a few miles south of the town of Morecambe. Sunderland Point, on the northern side of the river mouth, is a low-lying projection into the wasteland of mud and silt. At high tide in spring and autumn, the tip of the point becomes an island, but the rest of the time the village of Sunderland is connected to the mainland by a single-track causeway.

The Sunderland Point Causeway

Samphire grows abundantly along the roadside, while around it the normally flat mud has been sculpted into mounds and water-filled hollows. A heron stood in a pool looking for fish abandoned by the tide. As we reached the village, a curlew flew low overhead, dropping down onto the riverside where it joined a group of redshanks, using its long curved beak to harvest a layer of mud below that reached by the shorter, straighter beaks of its smaller companions. Further along, oystercatchers were doing what oystercatchers do, which is generally eating worms and small molluscs rather than catching oysters. Overhead a variety of raucous gulls announced their presence.

Samphire

The Village of Sunderland

The channel of the River Lune was maybe fifty metres away. On its muddy banks, fishing boats lay abandoned, awaiting high tide. Sunderland Point feels remote and desolate, though on closer inspection it is neither. Lancaster is not far away, the Ashton Memorial, the city’s hilltop landmark, is clearly visible. The small group of houses and barn conversions that comprise the village are well maintained and the eighteenth century buildings are fitted with twenty first century flood defences. Although there was nobody about, there were clear signs of an active community.

Fishing boats beside the River Lune

Once, though, Sunderland bustled. Vessels anchored in the river, awaiting the high tides that would take them upstream to the port of Lancaster. Sailors came ashore to do what sailors do – which is not necessarily catching oysters – and Sunderland catered for their needs.

Sunderland

In the 1780s, when Glasson Dock was built on the other side of the Lune and ships no longer had to wait for tides, Sunderland started its slide into obscurity.

'Sambo's' Grave

Eighteenth century Lancaster played its part in the triangular trade that brought cotton and sugar from the West Indies, took manufactured goods to West Africa and bartered them for slaves. There are even records of some forty black slaves in the Lancaster area.

Sambo, for that was the name he was given and the name he is buried under, arrived in Sunderland Point in 1736, either as a slave or as a cabin boy. He immediately fell ill and soon after died in the brewhouse of the Ship Inn, now known as Upsteps Cottage. As he was not a Christian, he was buried in unconsecrated ground on the tip of Sunderland Point.

Sixty year later James Watson, a retired schoolmaster, raised money from summer visitors to fund a memorial. In 1796 he placed a plaque on the grave bearing a poem he had written himself.

The plaque, Sambo's Grave, Sunderland Point

The words – with modernised spelling and orthography – read:

Full sixty years the angry winter's wave
Has thundering dashed this bleak and barren shore
Since Sambo's head laid in this lonely grave
Lies still and ne'er will hear their turmoil more

Full many a sandbird chirps upon the sod
And many a moonlight elfin round him trips
Full many a summer's sunbeam warms the clod
And many a teeming cloud upon him drips.

But still he sleeps - till the awakening sounds
Of the archangel's trump new life impart
Then the Great Judge his approbation founds
Not on man's colour but his worth of heart

The grave today is well signed and frequently visited. It is surrounded by flowers and painted stones, put there mainly by local school children - teachers are worthy and wonderful people.

James Watson’s brother William was a prominent Lancaster slave trader. Sixty years after his death the unfortunate Sambo was used in a quarrel between two brothers about a great issue of the day. It was, however an issue on which the long dead young man may well have felt strongly. At least his memory was co-opted by the right side.

Slavery and 'Modern' Slavery

A court judgement in 1772 had declared slavery illegal in England, slave trading was banned in 1807 and slavery itself abolished throughout the empire in 1833.

Slavery may be illegal, but that does not mean it no longer exists. The status of the Chinese cockle pickers who perished not so far from here in 2004 was little better than that of slaves. The law may no longer be on the side of the slavers, but enforcement, even in this country, is far from easy.

http://www.anti-slaverysociety.org/

Addendum 31/05/2014

The Praying Shell, the Cockle Pickers Memorial

While strolling beside Morecambe Bay near the village of Bolton-le-Sands in 2014 we came across the Praying Shell. Made from Portland limestone it is the work of Morecambe sculptor Anthony Padgett and was unveiled on the 30th of November last year as a memorial to the Chinese cockle pickers who died in 2004.

Praying Shell by Anthony Padgett, Bolton-le-Sands

We had visited this spot before and bought some of the excellent salt marsh lamb from Red Bank Farm (some of the farm buildings can be seen in the background). We had not realised that this is where the incident took place.

Mud flats, Bolton-le-Sands

In the picture the tide is out and the mud flats are relatively safe, provided you avoid the quicksands; but the tide can sweep in fast enough to drown the unwary - as it did in February 2004.

The Baltic Capitals: Part 3 Tallinn, Estonia

Estonia

Parnu

We stopped at Parnu on our way to Tallinn. Parnu is Estonia’s most popular seaside resort – so popular that a quarter of the population visit it at least once each year. Parnu has a set of traffic lights, some wooden buildings, some stone buildings, some old people sitting on benches and a flashing sign pointing the way to a sex shop. The reasons for its many thousands of visitors are not vouchsafed to those who drop into and then out of the bus station.

Parnu - the view from the bus station

From the Bus Station to our Hotel

Tallinn

Tallinn bus station is less conveniently sited than those in Vilnius and Riga, but catching a tram to the centre allowed us to see parts of the city that we would not otherwise have bothered with. Estonia was always the richest of the Soviet Republics and our first impression was that nothing had changed. Tallinn, away from the tourist areas, is smarter and more kempt than the other two capitals, the people look wealthier and the buildings more cared for. The Estonian economy was considered sound enough for them to adopt the Euro in January this year, a fact so far unnoticed by the Independent whose international edition told us exactly how many obsolete Kroons we would need to buy a copy in Tallinn. Our only experience of Finland is the inside of Helsinki airport, but Tallinn looks as I would expect Finland to look, and Estonians are the Finns closest relations both ethnically and linguistically.

We leapt from the tram at what we hoped would be an appropriate place and for the second time in a week disagreed on which way to walk. After studying the map I had to admit, again for the second time in a week, that Lynne was right. Either she is developing a sense of direction in her dotage or I am losing mine – or both.

Vadabuse Square and the Freedom Monument

Our hotel was a short walk away and only 50m from the subway into Vabaduse Square, on the edge of the old town. The subway finishes in an expanse of concrete and a set of wide, shallow steps up to the square. The ramp up the middle had probably not been constructed with skateboarders in mind – but the builder’s intentions were of no concern to the local youth. Above, the less frequented areas of the square provide perfect space for roller hockey.

Roller hockey in Vadabuse Square, Tallinn

Over the entrance was a big screen showing the weather or, occasionally, cartoons. We were now further north than the Orkneys, but under a blue sky, the temperature bounced cheerfully into the low twenties – though a sharpness in the breeze reminded us of our northern latitude.

The Freedom Monument stands on the edge of the square. Erected in 2009, it comprises an Estonian cross on a 24m column of dimpled glass. Officially it looks like an ice-sculpture in danger of melting – symbolising how easily freedom can melt away. To my unofficial eye, it looked like a column of cheap plastic blocks. Freedom, perhaps, can be easily thrown away but not so simply recycled.

 

Me spoiling the view of the Freedom Monument, Vadabuse Square, Tallinn

Toompea Hill and Tallinn Castle

From the monument we ascended the limestone outcrop of Toompea Hill. The hill held an Estonian stockade until the Danes arrived in 1219, built a stone castle and founded the city. The present ‘castle’ doubles as the national parliament; it is clearly a much later building and hardly designed as a stronghold. The old town, with its walls still intact – or at least heavily restored - sits at the foot of the hill.



Tallinn Castle

Despite its Scandinavian origins, Tallinn became German after the Livonian knights arrived from the south. A crusading order based in Riga, they had been slaying and/or converting pagans across the Baltic region. Like Riga, Tallinn became a mercantile city and, in 1285, a member of the Hanseatic League. The city was generally known by its German name of Reval until 1920.

The histories of Tallinn and Riga are very similar. Both thrived as Germanic ports for several centuries until, after a period of Swedish rule, they were absorbed into Russia by Peter the Great. As in all three Baltic States, two decades of post-First World War independence was followed in quick succession by soviet occupation, nazi occupation and annexation by the Soviet Union.

The Estonian peasantry, like their Latvian neighbours had been the farm labourers and domestic servants of a German elite.  The 19th century national awakening was an unintended consequence of the attempted Russification of the country. Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald’s epic poem ‘Son of Kalev’ was published in 1857. A reworking of folk-tales, it provided a national narrative for the Estonian people. A statue of Linda, wife of Kalev, sits in a sylvan grotto on the shoulder of Toompea Hill. It is hard to imagine the rather genteel lady depicted being the devoted wife of a giant, or single-handedly building Toompea Hill. 

Linda, wife of Kalev, Toompea Hill, Tallinn

The Russian Orthodox Cathedral

Facing the castle is the Russian Orthodox Cathedral. Built in 1900, its primary purpose was to remind the Estonians who was in charge. Much of the discussion on the Wikipedia ‘Tallinn’ page concerns the cathedral, and the objections to its picture appearing in the article; it is not really Estonian, the objectors say. What is beyond argument is that the building is there and difficult to ignore.

The Alexander Nevsky Russian Orthodox Cathedral, Tallinn

Outside the cathedral we first encountered what was to be the bane of our stay in Tallinn. Baltic cruising has become very popular and Tallinn is a major port. Cruise passengers trail around the town following their guides in bands of a hundred or more, each with their bus number stuck on their lapel. The ships are vast and dozens of these groups criss-cross the old town and troop up and down Toompea Hill swamping the unfortunate independent tourist. They want to see the place just as I do, so I should not complain but, perhaps hypocritically, I feel like a moan. Also, I cannot understand why anybody pays so much money to be herded around like sheep.

Tallinn's Luthern Cathedral

Nearby is the Lutheran Cathedral, a plain building as are most of Tallinn’s churches. Inside it is more interesting with boxed pews and a glassed off area for the nobility. Photographs were not allowed, but nobody said you could not take them through the open door.



Through the door of the Lutheran Cathedral, Tallinn

The Ramparts and Pikk Jag

From the ramparts we could look out over the old town, and parts of the new town, including the harbour, where we could see the colossal bulk of several cruise ships.



Looking out over the old town, Tallin
(with a cruise ship visible to the left of the church towers)

We descended into the old town by the long cobbled street of Pikk Jag, the wall on its uphill side an impromptu gallery for local artists selling their work.

A glance at the map might suggest we were back in Riga; like Riga, Tallinn has a House of the Blackheads and, instead of the Three Brothers, a set of old houses known as the Three Sisters.

There are, however, few other similarities. Riga is a city of small squares, Tallinn has one main square, containing the Town Hall, and long cobbled streets radiating out from it. And of course Tallinn has its wall with its red-roofed towers. Old Tallinn is twee, perhaps reminiscent of Carcassonne and, like that French city, it is, first and foremost, a tourist trap.

Tallinn - a bit like Carcassonne?

The House of the Blackheads and the Three Sisters

The House of the Blackheads, a late-medieval drinking club for bachelors of the Merchant class, has little architecturally in common with its Riga namesake, though the crest of St Maurice is the same.



The House of the Blackheads, Tallinn

The Three Sisters have been united into one upmarket hotel, though I would hesitate before choosing a hotel continually besieged by tourists attempting to photograph it and being thwarted by their inability to get far enough away.



The Three Sisters, Tallinn

The Olaviste Church

We made our way to the Olaviste Church. The Estonian language is closely related to Finnish. The two of them, along with Hungarian are the sole European survivors of the Uralic language group. Apart from Basque – which has no known relatives – they are the only extant  European languages not of the Indo-European language family. Latin has six noun cases, which was, I found in my schooldays, five more than I could cope with. Estonian has fourteen. Hence, St Olaf’s Church becomes the Olaviste Kirik and St Nicholas’ becomes, rather pleasingly, the Niguliste Kirik. 

King Olaf II of Norway was a 10th century warlord, but a Christian warlord, so was canonised for slaughtering people in a caring Christian way. The most interesting feature of the rather dull church bearing his name is actually outside it – the richly decorated grave of 15th century plague victim Johann Ballivi.



The grave of Johann Ballavi,St Olaf's, Tallinn

The Great Sea Gate, Fat Margaret and the MS Estonia Memorial

Continuing to the Great Sea Gate, we passed the maritime museum, with its plaque commemorating the help given by the British Navy in the Estonian War of Independence, 1918-20.



Commemoration of British assistance in the War of Independence
Tallinn

At one side of the gate is a tower known as Fat Margaret, for at least semi-obvious reasons.

Fat Margaret, Tallinn

Outside the gate is the memorial to the 852 people who died when the ferry ‘Estonia’ sank en route from Tallinn to Stockholm in 1994. The loss of the largest Estonian owned ship in the worst ever peacetime disaster in the Baltic sea was a severe blow to the newly independent country.



Memorial to those who died on the Estonia, Tallinn

Church of the Holy Ghost

We walked along the walls and back towards the centre where we visited the Church of the Holy Ghost.  Once the Town Hall Chapel, it became the church of the Estonian speaking population. Priests here produced an Estonian language catechism in 1535, an important statement at a time when most Estonians were living as serfs.

 

The oldest clock in Tallinn

With Tallinn’s oldest clock, dating from 1680, standing guard over the door, it is by far the city’s most interesting church. Cream walls, dark wooden pews and panelled balconies create a special atmosphere. The altarpiece, Descent of the Holy Ghost, by Bernt Notke (1483), is a masterpiece of medieval woodcarving.



The Descent of the Holy Ghost by Berndt Notke
Church of the Holy Ghost, Tallinn

Less sophisticated are the paintings of biblical scenes on the panels of one of the balconies. Naïve they might be, but their charm is undeniable.



Adam & Eve, waving some rather fine fig leaves
Church of the Holt Ghost, Tallinn

Town Hall Square

From the church an alley leads into the town hall square. The square is surrounded by restaurants and sometimes has a market in the middle. It is a permanently crowded, cheerful false-medieval scene, reinforced by the dress of the serving wenches of the Old Hansa Restaurant, just off the square. To complete the atmosphere they have minstrels inside and a crier dressed in motley, periodically touting for business in Estonian and English.



Town Hall Square

The Reapteek

The only building on the square that is not apparently a restaurant is the Reapteek. The façade is seventeenth century, the building behind at least two hundred years older. It is part museum, part working pharmacy and wholly strange.



Reapteek, Tallinn

 The City Museum

The City Museum is a couple of hundred metres from the square. The good news was it was the first place we had encountered offering senior citizen discounts, the bad news was they gave us the discount without question.

The museum gives a more genuine account of medieval Tallinn, with artefacts, real medieval costumes and a cut-away model of a merchant’s house. We continued upstairs to 19th century interiors with original furnishing, while on the top floor a fascinating collection of posters showed the happy workers and peasant united in their thankfulness to Josef Stalin, who was represented by a stern bust.

Happy workers and peasants love Uncle Joe
Tallinn Museum

St Nicolas' Church and Bernt Notke's Danse Macabre

Our main objectives for the second day were St Nicholas’ Church and the Museum of the Occupation just outside the old town.

St Nicholas was largely destroyed by Soviet bombing in 1944 and subsequently rebuilt as an art gallery and concert hall. It contains a number of notable woodcarvings and paintings, including several late medieval altars, but the star attraction is a fragment of Bernt Notke’s Danse Macabre. Everyone, regardless of wealth or station, must die and we see Death inviting kings, popes and fine ladies to join his dance. It was an immense painting - over 30m long - and the remaining fragment is still a substantial piece of work. It is among the finest surviving examples of this genre. No photographs were allowed in the church so I am borrowing Wikipedia’s. 



Bernt Notke's Danse Macabre
St Nicholas', Tallinn

The Museum of the Occupation

The Museum of the Occupation is housed in a glass box 250m south of the city wall. I would have thought it was ugly if I had not seen the museum in Riga. Like its fellows in Vilnius and Riga, the museum covers the events from 1940 to independence in 1991. The story is much the same catalogue of deportations and repression, but the Tallinn Museum is perhaps the weakest of the three. It is short on artefacts and rather long on video presentations. It would take a stronger man than me to watch six consecutive forty-minute documentaries (in English) on the trials and tribulations of being Estonian.

Perhaps the best part is the basement where they have statues of Stalin, Lenin, and several local leaders, less well known to us. The sculptures are monumental monsters and it is easy to see why the people of Vilnius are so happy with their informal bust of someone as harmless as Frank Zappa – though I suspect Frank Zappa would have been appalled to be called ‘harmless’.

These statues are no longer welcome in the parks and squares of any of the Baltic States, the Lithuanians have even gathered them in a semi-ironic open-air museum near the Belarus border. We found a different situation when we visited Russia in 2007. Lenin remains in his mausoleum in Red Square, while Yekaterinburg and Ulan Ude prominently display his statue, and their main streets - and those of Irkutsk - are still named after Lenin and Marx.

Johan Pitka

On our wanderings we passed this memorial to naval hero Johan Pitka.



Johan Pitka, Tallinn

Two young Italian men were climbing on the statue to stick their heads in the obvious place for a third to photograph. A local man of similar age was shouting at them – in English - to get down. Finding himself ignored he pulled out his phone and said he was calling the police. Still ignoring him, the Italians posed for their photograph and dismounted. The Estonian put his phone away shouted ‘it’s not your country’ and strode angrily away. This may inform us about a) the behaviour of foreign tourists in Estonia (and elsewhere) and b) the reaction of Estonians to them, or it may just tell us about the four individuals involved - I merely record what we saw and heard.

Erie Film, Vadabuse Square 

As we made our way back to the hotel, the big screen over the underpass was showing a documentary. Armoured vehicles rolled across the very square in which we stood, followed by nazi troops goose-stepping and saluting. It made me shiver to watch such events surrounded by exactly the same buildings that surrounded us – apart from a lick of paint the place has hardly changed in seventy years.  But there have been changes, deeper and more fundamental than the facades of the buildings. Given the choice between storm troopers and skateboarders, I will take the skateboarders every time.

Eating and Drinking in Tallinn

If Riga had been more expensive than Vilnius, Tallinn was another step up, indeed restaurant prices in the main square reached the levels you might expect in Western European capitals. Our lunches followed the well-established Baltic pattern of garlicky fried bread and beer. Estonian beer, particularly that of the A. Le Coq brewery, is lighter and gassier than the beer of Latvia and Lithuania. Perhaps for that reason, or maybe just for a change we chose to drink wine in the evenings. We visited one Italian restaurant – complete with genuine Pizza oven and Italian pizza chef, one more regular Estonian establishment and finally gave in to the mock medieval atmosphere and found a free table outside the Peppersack restaurant for our last night. Our ‘Pikeman’s Choice’ was a huge plate for two bearing a leg of smoked pork, roast potatoes, beery sauerkraut, pumpkin, dill pickle, mustard and horseradish. It was good hearty food in the best Baltic tradition, though I doubt any real pikemen fortunate enough to have enjoyed such a meal would have washed it down with a bottle of Chilean Merlot.



Pikeman's Choice, The Peppersack, Tallinn

Having fought our way through the cruise ship passengers we saw little of Tallinn’s other regular visitors, the stag party – though we did once have coffee at the next table to a group of very hungover young men. Our neighbours John and Linda, who lived in the Tallinn’s old town for a year, say they were quite happy to leave the city at weekends. We too left on a Saturday morning and while we were at the airport we observed the arrival of more than several groups of young men. I do not want to sound too po-faced about this (I have a past, dammit) but I was not sorry to miss their company.

An extremely short hop on the shuttle flight to Helsinki, brought our trip to the Baltic States to an end. I am grateful to anyone who has read right though Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn to arrive here. If such a person exists there is probably one burning question they now need to ask. The answer: the Estonian for ‘Harry Potter’ is……well, ‘Harry Potter’. What a let down.

See also

Part 1: Vilnius

Part 2: Riga