Robert Hampton

I have spent the last few days in wonderful Cornwall, exploring some of the beautiful railway branch lines and the towns and villages they serve. The main reason for visiting was to get some material for my “other” blog, The Station Master, and I will be writing it up there in the coming days and weeks. However, there are other stories to tell which fit better here than over there, so I will write up some stuff here too, beginning with my trip to Land’s End on Thursday afternoon.

I had spent much of the day in St Ives. It’s a lovely place, but on an overcast day out of season there’s not a terribly large amount to do, so I planned a second trip to finish the day off. I had an urge to go to Land’s End, the most westerly point in the UK. I couldn’t come to Cornwall, reach Penzance and then not go the final few miles to Land’s End, could I?

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Well, it has been a while since I last blogged, hasn’t it? I’m not quite sure what explanation I can offer. Maybe nothing interesting has happened in my life; maybe I’ve been too lazy to write anything. I suspect it is some combination of the two.

Now, however, it’s time for me to account for my whereabouts since Friday. If you’ve been following my Tweets, you will have noticed that I was in London over the weekend. A trip to the Smoke was something I’ve been pondering for a while, I decided to go to celebrate my birthday (which was yesterday, in fact). It proved to be a great weekend, offering the chance to catch up with friends old and new.

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While visiting Manchester with Scott to bag some Parliamentary railway stations (of which more later) I had a chance to ride the new Chorlton line of Metrolink.

The line opened only eight days ago and still has that new (tram)car smell – the trams are spotlessly clean. The trams were already busy, although some passengers just appeared to be riding the line for its novelty value. Even so, this bodes well for the future.

The Chorlton line is just the first of several new tram lines which will be opening in Greater Manchester over the next few years. Meanwhile, the number of tram routes in Liverpool remains firmly fixed at zero. It’s a shame that Merseytravel failed to get its network off the ground. I love Merseyrail, but there are big parts of the city which are not served and a tram system could have gone some way to filling in the gaps.

Will I ever get to ride a tram around the Liverpool City Centre Loop, which should have been up and running by 2008? Probably not for the foreseeable future, sadly.

“You’re going where?”

Such was the reaction from my friends when I told them I was planning to visit Birmingham on Monday. I think I would have earned a less scornful reaction had I organised a weekend break in Basra.

Lots of people say things about Birmingham: it’s a dump, it’s ugly, the local accent is like fingernails on a blackboard. But then again, lots of people say similar things about Liverpool. I was more than prepared, therefore, to give Birmingham the benefit of the doubt; as far as I was concerned it was a place that fulfilled my three criteria for a day out: it was cheap, it was somewhere I’d never been, and I could get there easily from Liverpool South Parkway.

Regular readers will have noted that I was recently forcibly separated from my mobile phone. That was a bit of a downer, and I certainly missed the distraction of music, internet and games during the 93 minute train journey. I had to look out of the WINDOW, for heaven’s sake!

On the other hand, it was strangely liberating to not have the pressure to Tweet my whimsical observations on Britain’s second city every five minutes. I was able to relax and enjoy myself, and save my outpourings for one big enjoyable spurt.

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This is the seventh and final part of my Tallinn blog. If you haven’t already, please enjoy part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 and part 6

For my final blog, I present a few bits that I left out of the previous blog entries, and my final thoughts on Tallinn.

So what did I think of the hotel? It was probably equivalent in comfort terms to a decent Travelodge — not the height of opulent luxury, but clean and perfectly comfortable. I have absolutely no complaints and would recommend it for travellers on a budget. Here’s the hotel’s web site if you want to investigate further.

It sounds like a cliché, but in this case I think it really is true to say that Tallinn is a city of contrasts. There’s the medieval old town, the stark concrete buildings of the Soviet years and the gleaming 21st century tower blocks, all within walking distance of each other.

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I’m still not done – this is part 6! If you’ve just joined us, catch up by reading part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5!

When the prospect of visiting Estonia was first mentioned, I will admit that the gay scene didn’t figure into my plans too much. If we were going to Berlin or Amsterdam, sure – but Tallinn? A small-ish Eastern European city? In a former Soviet state, no less?

Our guide book — which devoted two paragraphs out of 96 pages to gay and lesbian Tallinn — was not exactly enthusiastic either: “While attitudes to homosexuality in Tallinn are more relaxed than in fellow Baltic capitals Riga and Vilnius,” it cautioned, “they could hardly be described as enlightened.”

Naturally I studied the legal situation in this area before departure (wouldn’t it be nice not to have to worry about things like this?). Homosexuality only became legal in Estonia in 1992, but some progress was made and with that coveted EU membership in 2004 came some protections against discrimination. But in other ways the country lags behind: there is no recognition of same-sex partnerships, and much of Tallinn’s gay population prefers to keep things quiet and discreet.

Perhaps the most shocking development was when Andrew took advantage of the widely-available free wi-fi to fire up Grindr, which had trouble finding any “nearby buddies” closer than Helsinki – just a short fifty-mile ferry ride away.

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Believe it or not, this is part 5 of the Tallinn blog. Read part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4.

Tallinn’s medieval city walls are still largely in existence and have been lovingly preserved. At various strategic points towers were built. One of the largest is Kiek in de Kök in the west of the Old Town. The name is low German for “Peek in the Kitchen”, because from the windows on the tower’s upper floors it was possible to see straight into the homes of many of the city’s residents.

(Incidentally, we didn’t visit it at night as the picture suggests – the photo here was snapped by Andrew during our nocturnal wanderings the previous night. Between us we managed to miss taking any photos during our actual visit. D’oh!)

The tower has now been rebuilt as part of the city museum, housing various artefacts, mainly of a military nature. Excellently the internal structure has been preserved, meaning the various rooms and galleries are accessed via the original medieval stairways. That means – yes! – more steep, narrow passageways.

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This is part 4 of my Tallinn blog. Read part 1, part 2 and part 3.

Yes, I’ve run out of Tallinn puns. Never mind.

Wednesday was our only full day in Tallinn and we were determined to make the most of it. We headed down to breakfast, which excitingly was served in the railway station’s restaurant. The breakfast itself was (as hotel breakfasts often are) not particularly special, being your bog-standard help-yourself buffet, but it was adequate to start the day.

We headed first towards the the Occupations Museum, dedicated to Estonia’s history between 1940 and 1991, when the country was occupied by the Soviet Union, then Nazi Germany, before the Soviet Union invaded again. This small museum contains numerous artefacts from this fifty year period of oppression – everything from army uniforms to cars to Josef Stalin-themed matchboxes.

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This is part 3 of my Tallinn blog. Read the first part and second part.

Suitably re-energised, we headed back out and towards Town Hall Square. As the name suggests, it is adjacent to the Tallinn Town Hall. It also boasts a wide variety of bars and restaurants, and is thus a hub of activity throughout the day.

Despite the cold temperatures, a number of the eateries offered outdoor dining. Our guide book promised that in the summer months Tallinn has a “Mediterranean-style café culture”, but there was no evidence of that today, despite a lot of electric heaters working under the canopies to provide warmth.

Each establishment appeared to have a friendly man stationed in the square to entice tourists inside. Much to the delight of the representative of Old Estonia, we agreed to eat there. We decided to forego the outdoor option in favour of a window table inside.

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This is part 2 of my Tallinn blog. Read the first part.

By the time we had checked into the hotel and took a few moments to recover from the journey, it was after 3pm local time (Estonia being two hours ahead of the UK). We wasted no time in heading out to explore the surrounding area and make the most of the rest of the afternoon.

The first thing that hit us: it was cold. The cabin crew on the flight informed us that the temperature was a brisk 5°C, however this didn’t take into account the chill factor of the wind. Even with multiple layers, we shivered, especially after the unseasonably warm weather we’ve had in Liverpool lately.

I nearly brought the trip to a premature end outside the hotel, after forgetting that they drive on the left right in Estonia and looking the wrong way before crossing the busy dual carriageway. Only an angry honk from an approaching taxi driver alerted me in time.

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