When trip planning for Scandinavia, I had no real plan of going to Estonia. The guidebooks all mentioned that Tallinn could be an interesting stop, but only if you had time. Perhaps that underdog/under-explored factor is what tipped my decision to convince J we should go.

More than a year later, it’s still the city I think about most, even though it was the only place we visited where we didn’t also spend the night. We took the 2-hour ferry ride from Helsinki through the Baltic Sea to Estonia’s capital city. We had done little research and were not sure what to expect. Our blank slates probably contributed to our continual state of surprise and delight.