Tuesday 15 July

Today we left the boat at 9.00am and boarded a bus for Estonia - just 7 of us on this tour in a small bus & with our own tour guide. Our group consist of 3 Americans, 2 Brazilians (who partly left the country to avoid the Soccer World Cup) & ourselves with a Lithuanian tour guide. Before midday we had lunch at the Russian border. And then took about 1.5 hours to negotiate customs at the Russian and Estonian border checkpoints. After entering Estonia we had another lunch! Perhaps the tour people thought the Russians had not fed us well enough!! Anyway, the 2 1/2 hour drive to Tallinn along a major highway financed by the EU was fairly uneventful, but it was evident that the country of Estonia was more advanced than Russia in the rural areas.  English is widely spoken & many signs are in English.

During dinner we heard of the Metro crash in Moscow and were grateful we had left 10 days ago as we had spent time riding the Metro. We went for a walk in the Old Town area of Tallinn tonight after dinner and we have included some pictures.