Tallinn Old TownL photo taken from one of the castle towers.
My first sauna experience in Estonia felt like i was watching a bunch of women go about their daily bathing ritual. This was not a relaxing sauna - it was an intense beauty routine. Women wore face masks, body scrubs, hair masks, scrubbed themselves with loofas and brushes and whipped themselves with birch twigs. I tried the whipping - expecting scratch marks and pain, but it was more like hitting yourself with a bunch of birds feathers. The birch made the sauna smell amazing.
It's very very cold here and it's been snowing, which has made the town look very pretty. Tallinn feels more like scandinavia than Latvia. I feel very safe here. The town is pretty and the remains of the walls are amazing.
In this part of the world you need to include hot chocolate and coffee into your daily budget. Believe me, it's necessay to escape the cold.
I hired a bike and rode out to the city beach - approx 8 km out of town. I'm dressed in 4 layers, beanie and gloves and it still takes my butt a good 20 minutes to thaw out in the coffee shop where i run to escape the chill.
