With Christmas nearly upon us I MUST catch up with previous months news!!
On June 27th I left for Queensland to spend a few days with Hayley and Megan, staying with Hayley - enjoying beach front walks and Megan's birthday......
........before the 3 of us flew out of Brisbane on 2nd July.....
ESTONIA ..... 2nd - 11th July!
Tallinn had not really changed since the 3 of us were there in 2016 and we soon found our old "haunts"......
Our reason for the trip to Estonia was to watch the open-air Estonian Song Festival - held every 5 years - and this year my sister, Vivien was taking part singing with the Sydney Estonian Choir. Estonian choirs from across the world take part with approx 30,000 singers and an audience of around 500,000. While wandering around the streets it is nothing unusual to see groups dressed in national costumes over the weekend of the festival. The weekend starts with a parade through Tallinn - unfortunately this year after a few lovely warm days the heavens opened but it did not diminish the feeling of excitement of actually being there.....
Vivien in the centre
Festivities over Vivien enjoyed more of discovering Tallinn with a friend while Hayley, Megan and I set off on a road trip. First stop was the very small island of Muhu off the west coast....accessed by car ferry. This is where my Dad's biological family came from....
From Muhu we drove across to the island of Saaremaa (via a causeway) and our accommodation for the night - a great little cottage tucked away in the woods...
We would have loved to have stayed here for longer than one night - maybe another time? We then headed off to the main town on this island - Kuresaare. A picturesque town which like all towns has a castle - best preserved castle in the Baltics and the regions only medieval castle that has remained intact.
Back on the car ferry to the mainland and a few hours later we arrived in Tartu known as the "University" town - the university here being founded in 1632.
The remains of St Johns Church, Tartu, dates back to at least 1323! It was huge!!
The "crooked" house - foundations were laid partially over an old town wall which later collapsed - these days it is the Art Museum.
An afternoon was spent at the amazingly big - and interesting - National Musem before we headed North and back to Tallinn.
On 10th July, our last (full) day in Estonia, together with Vivien we were on our way to Rakvere - about 2 hours East of Tallinn - to visit Dad's adoptive family - having been adopted at a very young age after loosing both parents. Hayley, Megan and I had visited them last time we were in Estonia. Before Dad passed away he had expressed his wish to have a plaque placed between his step-parents and on this trip we were able to full-fill his wish. I had had the plaque made up before we left and had it safetly packed in my suitcase.
It was lovely to catch up with Dad's family - who still live in the house Dad lived in and helped in getting his plaque in place. On this visit Megan added her husband James's name to the family tree which Dad's 2nd "cousin", Aime, keeps up to date. Aime loved the the scarf with bottle brush flowers we gifted to her.
All too soon 11th July came around and it was time to pack up, and together with Vivien, head off for our next adventure......
To be continued......
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