The two longest days on the bike were long. I have not said much about the cycling side of things, but it is both a great way to get around and a pain in the backside (literally and figuratively) at the same time. The first day of cycling I was, as mentioned, not feeling the best, and I thought the entire trip was doomed.
The second day - to Palmse - was magic. The pills I had bought from the pharmacist had kicked in, the scenery was marvelous, and I was in high spirits. I stopped off at manor houses, museums, small shops in the middle of nowhere and käsitöö stalls in the front yards of farmers. I made excellent time, and did not get lost at all, and found my way into Palmse with grace, aplomb and barely a hair out of place. It was a good day.
The third day, into Rakvere, was shorter but seemed longer. My feet and butt both hurt and the highlight of the trip was a late lunch I had at some place called Forell Haljala. The place I had planned to stop for lunch was not a town with a shop so much as a hamlet without one, so I had to push on longer than I would have liked.
However, this Forell place (forell is Eesti for trout) was worth the stop. It was beautiful, the food was good (and massive), and the people who lived there and ran the joint were friendly. They actually caught the fish from their pond - to order! I think that was the first time something has been specifically caught and killed for me instead of lying around dead in a shelf somewhere. Freshly caught, barbecued trout, really good chips and a nice fresh salad - and all more food than I could eat. Well worth it.
Rakvere was... well... let us say I would rather have stayed the extra day in Palmse than Rakvere. At least the break from riding helped me get my wind back. The fourth day on the bike was okay... until I shot straight past the place I was supposed to be staying at and continued on for another three or four kilometers. Then I had to ask a local for directions. She spoke a dialect of Estonian that had a few Russian words thrown in for good measure. I knew just enough of both languages to work out that she said here and there a few times.
Anyway, I eventually found my way back to where I was staying. It was not, in fact, in Tudulinna at all (which my directions had implied) but a few clicks north of that town. Quite a comfortable place - with a hell of a lot of wood everywhere. Walls, furniture, decorations... all carved wood. It looked like it might be a heck of a summer camp, but I was clearly there during the off season. My host did not speak more than a few words of English. I did not speak more than a few words of Estonian. We managed. I was exhausted.
I was asked a few times if I spoke German, as that would have made things easier. I must remember to learn German before coming back to Europe. Maybe French, too.
The trip to Kallaste (actually, a place just south of Kallaste), was exceptionally long. Only, on paper, on or two km longer than the trip the day before (which I had actually exceeded, so in theory it was actually shorter), but my get-up-and-go got up and went at about the 40km mark, leaving me with 25km to pull out of thin air, with nothing in the tank.
I passed the best place to stop for lunch at morning tea time, and spent the rest of the day buying little things to keep me going, thinking I would get something more substantial at Kallaste, or at least make up for it with dinner. At Kallaste, I ended up buying another little thing (a tub of yogurt), and as luck would have it, this guesthouse was the one place on my list that A) did not serve dinner, and B) did not have a restaurant nearby. A fact not mentioned in my notes. Thankfully I had some food in my pack, and my kind hosts at Willipu Guesthouse took pity on me and gave me some of the dinner they had made for themselves.
The ride into Tartu was quite enjoyable. It was a shorter trip (even shorter than it was described on paper), and I managed to see some nice scenery and a museum dedicated to Joseph Liiv. The docent (was she also the curator?) gave me a student discount because I said I was hoping to study in Tartu in the foreseeable future. She said to call it a good-luck charm.
Mercifully, this stretch of the trip had undulations in the road. The trip to Kallaste had been mostly flat and, if anything, slightly uphill. I could not coast for any of it, thus dragging it out all the more. This stretch had some nice rolls, letting me rest occasionally.
Tartu is nice. Really livable. I can definitely see myself coming back to spend some quality time here, down the track. I decided to spend an extra day here so that I could spend one day just toodling about the place on the bicycle, and the other day checking out the museums. The toodling day was most successful and highly enjoyable. I even met up with my distant cousin, Airi, for lunch, which was nice. Today, however, it is raining.
Raining, and really, really cold. I keep getting flashbacks of a horrible knock-knock joke I read as a child:
Knock knock(I told you it was terrible).
Who is there?
Martini
Martini who?
Martini hand is frozen from being left out here in the cold.
Tomorrow I have to get halfway across town to put the bike on one bus, and then get myself back to the bus station for people to travel to Viljandi. I suspect there shall be taxis involved, especially if I do not get myself an umbrella shortly...
well well well, hope busing it is a bit more comfortable for you and that the food is cheap and plentiful
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