Inside the medieval town walls of Tallinn, Estonia

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Something happened today in Tallinn, Estonia that reminded Masayo and I that while traveling in the off-season can have its frustrations, it can also lead to some more immersive and dynamic experiences: you can see better soak up a place when you’re the only one there, and there are no crowds or people jostling and murmuring all around you.

We ended up walking around the Old Town walls of Tallinn, and it was only because we happened to notice a tiny little wooden door in a nondescript corner of a cobblestoned intersection. And it was my birthday – my present was a trip back to medieval times.

Breakfast

We awoke to a clear, crisp, cold day; the high was forecast to be 1ºC (33ºF). Estonia in October: a good way to test out the effectiveness of the warm layers of clothing you’ve packed.

My blood sugar was 113. Another birthday present from the diabetes travel gods, though it wouldn’t remain perfect all day. I thought breakfast at the little cafe attached to Center Hotel was included in the room price but we had to pay for it, €4 each. It was a good buffet though, including Scandinavian meatballs with the other typical breakfast stuff. I shot up Humalog at the table, through my Bluff Works travel pants, and ate enough food that I could almost skip lunch entirely.

With a little diabetic planning, this can be a great way to save money on the road: eat what you can at breakfast. This may prove to be a tough thing to handle well, since you’re going to either be ingesting a lot of carbs, a lot of protein, or (like me) both, which can wreak all sorts of havoc with blood glucose. But with some experimentation I believe it can be done.

I did poorly this day. But at least I have a starting point.

A morning off

The morning sun was beaming directly into our room so we moved the laundry drying rack so it would get the benefits of the sunbeams. And then like the laundry we elected to hang around and do some online work before heading out into Tallinn. I worked on t1dwanderer.com.

At 2:30 pm my BG was 281. Curse my poor breakfast carb estimation. We went out for some food and so I could take a shot of insulin. (First we stopped by the front desk to extend our stay in Tallinn one more day – we have a lot of countries left to see on this trip, and it’s only Day 7, but there is just so much to see in this town.)

Small snack for lunch

At a nearby shopping center we had sandwiches at Reval Cafe; I finally took a shot for the food and for the 281 I already was, and we watched the people and traffic through the big window of the second-floor cafe. Then Masayo bought a big thick coat at a local H&M store – she has felt the cold and knows that it’s only October, and her other layers aren’t going to be enough.

After buying some locally knit gloves for friends of ours back in Japan, we headed back into Old Town Tallinn (a.k.a. Vanalinn), trying to remember where we walked yesterday and seeking out new areas.

We found some leading into the old stony past.

Climbing up the spooky Old Town wall towers

Wandering through the leaf-strewn and sparsely populated streets of endlessly pleasant Old Town Tallinn, I noticed a small wooden door in a corner. There was nothing intriguing about it, so I was intrigued: what is this?

A small sign indicated it was some business that was open; we pulled back the heavy wooden door and found a dark, cramped room with a ticket window staffed by a woman. For €1.50 you can climb up a spiral staircase and walk in the hollowed-out Old Town walls. Nobody else seemed to be there. We paid.

It was genuinely spooky, climbing up into cobwebby darkness and using the dark, frigid stones to steady ourselves. Once upstairs you can walk along the wall and look out on the streets of Old Town below, and there are three towers you can climb into.

Each staircase was dark and steep and spooky. Some had a little rope you had to cling to to guide you up. Inside each tower was a different kind of room – a large round wooden one in this one full of sunbeams, dust, and pigeons; a small stone one here just big enough for 3 or 4 people. Names and dates are carved into some of the wooden surfaces commemorating past visitors. (We saw some Japanese graffiti, to my delight.)

In one of the towers I checked my BG, partially to see how my cafe insulin shot had worked with the high post-breakfast blood sugar reading, but also just because I wanted to get a scenic diabetes photo. I was 94 and quite pleased about that.

We were the last customers of the day for the Old Town Wall lady; after we climbed back down, thanked her, and walked out, she locked up. The time travel back to medieval Estonia was just for us.

At a supermarket we bought some water: I chose one called Borjomi because the logo was in Georgian script: ბორჯომი. Maybe I was trying to make up for the Georgian restaurant that was closed last night. I love a new script, even if it’s not from the place I currently am.

Birthday dinner at SALT

My birthday dinner, which Masayo said she’d pay for, was at a restaurant called SALT. Downstairs in the corner of a building in the quiet neighborhood behind our hotel, SALT is a wine restaurant with a single-page food menu and several pages of wines. Masayo doesn’t drink alcohol and I didn’t want any so we just ordered two sparkling waters plus a dish each. Probably a violation of the place’s vibe, but as travelers it’s our job to stick out and annoy.

The waitress must have seen our type before. She was very polite and friendly as she explained that we had ordered appetizers, and the more substantial meals were at the bottom of the page and might be better for us. (And more expensive.) She left to get our water and let us choose again. Masayo got spicy mussels, and I got lamb liver with blueberry sauce. It was all excellent, better than we usually eat and a little pricier. Except for the blueberry sauce, mine didn’t seem to have much carbs so I took no insulin at all. Perhaps an unwise choice; I’d find out soon.

At the end of the meal it struck me that I didn’t know the rules about tipping in Estonia. Do people do that? I’m from America, where you tip everywhere, but now live in Japan, where you never tip. So I had no instinct for it in Estonia. We didn’t tip at SALT, but I vowed to look it up later.

Dessert, sorta

After dinner we wanted some dessert, like a doughnut, and stopped at a cafe near the hotel that is open until 11:00 pm. They had what looked like apple strudels on the counter for €1.50, so I got one to go.

Back in our room, I bit into the strudel to find that it was filled with cheese, and was not sweet like a dessert. Oh well. We split it in two while I checked my BG: 155. I had a shot of Humalog and ate my half of the impostor strudel and Georgian water.

The strudel was denser than I though, unfortunately: before bed I was 206. I took one unit of corrective Humalog, plus my regular Lantus shot, and went to bed.

So, it was a fantastic breakfast, a quintessential day of Eurotravel. I investigated medieval town walls and had a nice array of unexpected foods. I badly misjudged my breakfast shot, and made some questionable choices at dinner, but thoroughly enjoyed everything. Even when diabetes isn’t perfect, traveling makes it all right.

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