If you're going to enjoy the end of summer, then enjoy it thoroughly.
On our way from Palanga, we stopped in Tallinn for 3 days!
We want to compare the cycle paths in Lithuania and Estonia, and tonight, on our first evening, we cycled a bit through the center of Tallinn, but tomorrow we are ready for a longer ride!
Riding and rattling along the cobblestones of the old town made us so hungry that we realized it would take too long to go back to the hotel. So, for the umpteenth time, we visited our favorite pancake cafe, called Pancake Pub Kompressor. The pancakes here are so big it's hard to finish them, and they cost about 8 Eur, both savory and sweet! The boys rated the pancakes a perfect 10!
Our hotel this time is Tallinn Viimsi Spa & Waterpark, which is not in the very center of Tallinn but slightly outside the city. However, it boasts the H2O water park, the largest spa center in Estonia with 11 different saunas, and the best 18+ spa center in the Baltics.
Today, with the children, we tried 5 water slides, and in the 18+ zone, together with Evita Eidina, we enjoyed a salt scrub, smeared ourselves with mud, soaked in hot tubs, and stumbled upon a sauna ritual that lasted about 15 minutes. At the end, everyone was given a sauna whisk and we could wave them around like crazy. After the ritual, we plunged into the cold pool and stayed there for about a minute, but after that pool, I suddenly felt so exhausted that I barely made it to a bed by the pool and slept there for 40 minutes, while Evita enjoyed the pools and other saunas.
This hotel is a real treat in any season; perhaps it's even better in winter, as enjoying the sauna then can be even more pleasant!
°Tomorrow we'll show more pictures from the 18+ zone, and tomorrow we want to cycle the big Tallinn loop!
It only happens a few times in life, maybe never for some, but I'll tell you about it at the end of the article!
This morning for us started with morning exercises; even before 7 AM, we rode 12 km from Viimsi towards Tallinn and found a great forest trail that is paved and at times runs close to the seashore, right along the dunes. Back in our Viimsi district, we stopped at the Haabneeme beach and went for a swim, experiencing for the first time that the water is cold at the shore but gets warmer as you go deeper!
Returning from the swim, we all concluded, especially Evita Eidina, that these morning exercises bring great pleasure and satisfaction, having started the day so nicely and actively. But if you had seen Evita's face when we made her get on the bike in the morning and cycle with us on that chilly autumn morning! I even kept my distance from her because I didn't want her to run me over with her bike. But I knew that as soon as the sun started shining, Evita would also start smiling, and so it was! (You can see it in the pictures)
Morning exercise is a good thing, but the appetite after morning exercise is even better. I won't list what each of us ate, but the hotel staff certainly thought we were some starved family who had just finished observing a Ramadan!
After breakfast, we headed to the water world—the young ones to the aqua park, and Evita and I to the Spa zone, to the sauna complex. And indeed, the hotel wasn't lying: they have 11 saunas in the Spa zone and 6 saunas in the 18+ zone. Don't tell anyone, but in the 18+ zone, there's delicious lemon water and a fruit platter that is constantly refilled, especially after our visit—well, just kidding, everyone likes those fruits and water.
Okay, time to tell this interesting and at the same time incredible story.
Here in Tallinn lives a friend from my youth who once lived in Dobele, and whom I haven't seen for more than 15 years. We call or message each other from time to time, but we had never met. Today I thought, tomorrow I will definitely call him, and we will finally meet. Today we need to set a cycling record and cycle from Viimsi to the center of Tallinn. Slowly, all four of us, without rushing and observing the surroundings, we head towards Tallinn. Again, the weather is good, the sun is shining, our cheeks are rosy both from the sun and from pedaling, and upon entering Tallinn, the team has come up with a new plan: while the three of them, Evita and the youngsters, will walk around the old town, I have to cycle back to Viimsi, which is not that close, 16km, and then drive the car to pick them up. I don't argue for long, as it's three against one, so I get on the bike and head to the hotel. I'm riding and thinking about what needs to be done, and I remember I should call my buddy, but I have this feeling that I will meet him while cycling. I continue riding and start to recall what he even looks like, then a few minutes pass and a person approaches from the opposite direction, all in black, with a black cap. I ride past him and at the last moment, I glance at him and shout, "Is that you?" I ride about 5 meters further, stop, look back and see that he isn't looking. I think I need to catch him and make sure if it's him or not, but since he's out for a sport, catching him isn't that easy. Adrenaline is pumping, my heart is pounding, I pedal as hard as I can, I pull up next to him and yes, it's him. I say, "Where are you off to?" but he retorts, "What do you want?" It turns out he didn't recognize me at first and thought some Estonian was bothering him.
Such an event, where two guys from Dobele meet in Tallinn on bicycles after 15 years, is not common, and this meeting was truly an emotional event, intensified by the fact that I had sensed and imagined it just 5 minutes prior!
We stood on the bike path for 2 hours, telling each other about our lives and the most memorable events, when suddenly my phone rang. I answered, and it was Evita, "I hope you're on your way to pick us up, because I have a massage booked at the hotel in 50 minutes." Oh my god, I had forgotten about them and didn't really say goodbye to Zhenya, because we'll meet again tomorrow. I flew 12 km on my bike to the hotel, with an average speed of 30km/h and a pulse of 170 beats per minute, got in the car, went to pick them up, but the massage was still missed!
But that doesn't stop me from calling this day great, because first, I met my friend, second, I broke my daily record, 42km, and third, we are all happy and content!
May you all have many more fantastic adventures ahead and be happy!
Palanga vs. Tallinn!
Dolphinarium vs. Waterpark!
Curonian Spit vs. Tallinn beaches!
Mana Suites & Sea vs. Viimsi Spa!
The taste of Palanga vs. the taste of Tallinn!
Lithuanian feelings vs. Estonian feelings!
Italian concert in Palanga vs. Estonian jazz!
Which is better, what stuck in memory more, what would you definitely recommend to others?
Our little Baltic trip has concluded, and in 6 days we've enjoyed both Palanga and Tallinn. This was truly a fine adventure, with a fine ending and equally fine emotions!
To fully enjoy a trip, you need to experience the entire range of emotions, because if you haven't experienced what it's like to be bad, you'll never know what it's like to be good, it's like in music, to create a great composition, all notes must be used! This time we also used all notes, starting from stomach aches and ending with goosebumps while listening to music, at sunset and in great company! Music accompanied us throughout the journey this time, great music on the beach, an Italian concert in a restaurant in Palanga, and a small jazz performance in Tallinn.
This was also a maximally active adventure for us, as during these days we cycled more than 100km, had morning exercises every day, and swam in the sea every morning. I don't know about my team, but I can definitely say that these morning exercises brought me immense pleasure.
Riding bicycles on the bike paths of Palanga, I truly enjoyed it and thought that there couldn't be any cooler paths than these, but in Tallinn, there is one path that is even cooler and goes through a pine forest, at times so close to the sea that the asphalt is built into the dunes. You ride and enjoy nature, the sea, the forest, and the smell of the sea.
One evening I was cycling and started laughing. Evita asked me what had gotten into me, and I said, "I'm laughing because I've realized I'm a real idiot!" She looked at me in confusion and asked if that was something to laugh about. I said, "It is, I needed 45 years to realize how wonderful it is to travel, enjoy, and experience things by bike!" And I truly get pleasure from it! But Evita reassured me, "Don't worry, do you know how many people are even older than you and still haven't realized it?"
Palanga versus Tallinn. Let's start by saying that we drove from Dobele, and Palanga is half as close to us as Tallinn. Therefore, Palanga will be a more frequent destination than Tallinn, but if we don't consider the distance, then both cities are charming. Tallinn has a wonderful Old Town, and Palanga has a great central pedestrian street. Both places have restaurants, pubs, music, and a sea of people. If some time ago prices in Tallinn were more expensive than in Lithuania, now either Lithuania has caught up with Estonia, or Estonia has copied from Lithuania. Restaurant and pub prices are similar.
Comparing the taste of Lithuania and the taste of Tallinn, it's a draw here. Lithuania's cold soup with boiled potatoes against Tallinn's pancakes—both are pretty strong competitors here, so I won't take sides this time!
Palanga's Mana Suites & Sea versus Tallinn's Viimsi.
Here's what you could do: if you combined both, you'd get a fantastic hotel. Take our room, the elevator, and the rooftop lounge from the Palanga hotel and put them in the Viimsi hotel, and you'd have a 5-star hotel, the best in the Baltics, for sure! Or vice versa, take the breakfast, spa area, water park, and 18+ zone from Viimsi and put them in Palanga, and again you'd get the best hotel!
When it comes to feelings, it's about how you create those feelings yourself, and it's up to you how you perceive something new. Even though we've been to so many places in this vast world lately, this small trip gave us so many pleasant feelings that it's hard for us to evaluate where we felt better or where we liked it more; in both places we felt happy and joyful, and that's the most important thing this time.
But if you were to ask what should definitely be included in your trip, the first thing I would recommend is to bring bicycles. With them, you will see much more and won't be as dependent on a car or any other transport. For example, in Tallinn, on the first evening, we didn't drive to the center; we left the car in a free parking lot, unloaded the bikes, and cycled through the entire city center. What could be better?!
Second, leave sleep at home; when traveling, you need to wake up early, so you'll be able to see and do much more during the day.
And third, take everything positively. Remember that anything that causes you stress now, you'll laugh about in a week, and these will be the most interesting stories for your family!
But as a wise person once said, it's better to see once than to hear a hundred times, so very soon, on our YouTube channel www.youtube.com/goldbarbellvideo, our Lithuanian and Estonian adventures will be available in video format!
Now I definitely don't believe anyone will read to the end, but if you do, put a comment!
Thank you and see you in new adventures!
