TANKS Travel Tales - a travelogue.......

  "Let your wanderlust take hold and bring yourself to places unknown....... " - Timothy Tan, tankstraveltales Stairs, Old Town, Tallinn, Estonia (2017)

Estonia, Tallinn, Praying at the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral This article was originally published in this blog in June 2018. Visiting the Baltic region for the first time in 2017, I was both amazed and impressed by what I experienced. As I travelled around the region, the ticks in my personal Travel Bucket List keep growing. This is a region deep in history and culture. It will take many trips over the coming years to fully appreciate what the region has to offer to travellers like myself. I will surely return for subsequent visits. ****************** Tallinn is both the capital city as well as cultural heart of Estonia. Located on the shores of the Baltic Sea, the city of Tallinn is both a reflection of new and old. The recent economic growth of Estonia has transformed the country greatly. Evident of this is everywhere including in Tallinn itself, mostly represented by gleaming, neat and artfully designed office towers. Yet, with its UNESCO World Heritage Site-inscribed Old Town, the

Finland & Estonia, Gulf of Finland, Baltic Sea The ocean has more often than not, invoked a sense of romance (travel-wise) for me. And for someone who was born and grew up in a part of the world near the equator and in South-East Asia, the northern seas of Europe are often seen as exotic and exciting. Thus, when I was planning a trip to Finland for spring of 2017, I just could not resist including a short sailing trip across the Baltic Sea, just for that personal vanity of checking off another item on my travel bucket list. Besides the bucket list tick, of course I did get to visit Estonia as well and walked on the famed cobblestone streets of Tallinn's Old Town, another item on my bucket list! To be honest, I did not actually get to sail right across a large swathe of the Baltic Sea, but only that tiny fraction from Helsinki to Tallinn across the Gulf of Finland to be be exact. But because the Gulf of Finland is technically classified as the easternmost part of the Baltic Sea,

Estonia, Tallinn, Old Town - UNESCO World Heritage Site From a young age, I had read countless books on fairy tales where the central characters lived in medieval Europe. The age-old story of Hansel and Gretel quickly came to mind when I was planning a trip to Helsinki and the idea of a side trip to Tallinn cropped  up. Reading up as much as I could about Tallinn, I realised that the Old Town district of the Estonian Capital is considered to be the best preserved medieval city in northern Europe. Pictures of cobblestone streets and buildings with Gothic spires convinced me that I had to make the trip as a personal travel Bucket List item. Inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997, the Old Town of Tallinn has no lack of churches, houses, barns and streets all dating as far back in time as the Middle Ages.  When I arrived in Tallinn onboard the ferry from Helsinki, I immediately headed for the Old Town. Entering the town through the Viru Gates transported me back t

I was awestruck by the grandness and magnificence of this building during my walking tour of the Old Town of Tallinn. While there, I had no opportunity to enter the building itself. Thus, admiring its facade and photographing its structure as I walked around its perimeter had to suffice.  The  Palace of Ungern-Sternberg, Tallinn, Estonia (2017) Without knowing what this building was, its history and its name, the photographs I took allowed me to conduct basic research on it after the trip.  Based on my rudimentary research into the building long after my trip to Tallinn, I was to discover that it was built in the year 1865 by the German architect, Martin Gropius. Also known as the Palace of Ungern-Sternberg, the building is today the home of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. The Academy is a group of scientists whose aim is to promote research & development and scientific cooperation as well as knowledge dissemination.  The main building housing the Academy is a

Tallinn is both the capital city as well as cultural heart of Estonia. Located on the shores of the Baltic Sea, the city of Tallinn is both a reflection of new and old. The recent economic growth of Estonia has transformed the country greatly. Evident of this is everywhere including in Tallinn itself, mostly represented by gleaming, neat and artfully designed office towers. Yet, with its UNESCO World Heritage Site-inscribed Old Town, the Gothic-style Town Hall and historical Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Tallinn retains much of its medieval heritage to give visitors unique insights into its rich history and culture. Those who are interested in history will be pleased to know that Tallinn itself is home to many museums and galleries. These include the Estonian History Museum, the Estonian Maritime Museum and the Tallinn City Museum. History and Geography The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral was built in the late 19th century when Estonia was still part of the Russian Empire. The cathed

2017 Travel Review....... In terms of travel, 2017 has been the year where I travelled the most in recent memory. For the year, I have clocked a total of almost 130,000 miles in air travel alone. I basically travelled at least once every month; for all 12 months of the year. Three-quarters of my travels in 2017 were for work with the rest being vacation trips. New cities I had travelled to included vacations to Atami and Ito (Japan), Helsinki (Finland), Luang Prabang (Laos) and Tallinn (Estonia). A street in the Old Town of Tallinn, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Tallinn, Estonia (2017) The Helsinki Cathedral, Helsinki, Finland (2017) Vat Manorom Temple, Luang Prabang, Laos (2017) Other cities that I had travelled to in 2017 were mainly for work and they included cities which I had previously visited multiple times. The repeated visits to these cities did not in any way diminish the enjoyability of these trips and I did manage to snatch time out from my he

Reading and Travelling....... What has reading got to do with travelling? Plenty of reasons. For me, reading up on the countries and cities I am visiting provide me with lots of information on the sights and sounds that I can expect. It also allows me to better plan my itinerary and help me to decide on where to stay and how much time to spend in a particular place. Other important information like currency exchanges, local culture and customs, potential immigration hurdles and visa applicabilities are also what I look out for when I read up on the places i am about to visit. Most of these information can be found in travel guides or on the internet. Dungeons and Dragons, a wall mural in a former dungeon and now a toilet, in a restaurant housed in a heritage building, Tallinn, Estonia (2017) And of course, reading about the experiences of other travellers provide me with a whole new world of information not usually available in officially published literature. For this r