Tartu

A university city in the interior. While Tallinn is the political and the financial capitol , Tartu is the intellectual and cultural center. The Livonian Knights took over the settlement in the 13th century during their northern crusades. Tartu also became a city of the Hanseatic League, a multinational merchant association. Later on a Polish Lithuanian alliance took over followed by the Swedish. Eventually imperial Russia took control. Afterwards the usual Nazi and Communist story laid their mark.

We arrived after spending some time in Viljandi, a city west of Tartu. A nice lake shore town with a lot of old people because everybody with ambitions goes to Tallinn or Tartu.

In Tartu we took a short stroll through the old town, which was OK. Brick buildings dominate while the wooden houses are only visible in the outskirts. We ate at an gunpowder cellar which was built by order of Cathrine the Great. It boasts a Guinness record of having the highest pub ceiling in the world (11m). After drinking some beers - even my mother drank a bit - we were tired and retired early. Next day we were off to Latvia and drove through the beautiful landscape which is populated only very sporadic. Bison's, bears and deers still roam this area. But we only saw some deers and a lot of stork nests. An ancient believe is that if a stork decides to nest next to somebodies house, they will have more luck at getting children. So every house has an elevated platform ready for a stork looking for property.