Drive from Kiruna - 12 - Return to Malmo (12 - 13 Jan 23)

 We started our last day in Tallinn with a sleep in, then packed up and cleaned up and dropped our bags off at the luggage office.  We had until 5pm until the ferry boarded, so we had some time to do a last walk around Tallinn.

We decided to take Kris and Cameron down to the Viru Gate as they has not gone with us the night before, and from there Cameron asked if we could check outside the Old Town area to see a bit more of Tallinn.  We ended up walking for about half an hour, through series of commercial areas before heading back into Old Town.

The Viru Gate, (meaning Clay Gate) was first mentioned in 1362 and was named because of its proximity to the clay pits.

We did have a laugh that there is now a Kebab restaurant inside the tower from the 1300s...

Outside the gates was a flower market, with boxes showing flowers had come from Netherlands, Tunisia and several other places:

On our way to the gates we had to bypass a section of street where snow was being shovelled from the roof:

Once outside the walls we passed the Merineid (Mermaid) statue that was created in 1980 and dedicated to the Tallinn Sailing Regatta in the Summer Olympics, which was held in Tallinn.

Once we got back into the town, Tomas led us for a walk and we ended up back at the town hall, where I got a better shot of the Dragons and also of Vana Toomas (old Thomas) the windvane:

Unfortunately the temperature had risen over night and as it dropped again the snow had turned into slush and patches of ice, which made the way pretty slippery and we had to pick our paths carefully so as to not slip:

We ended up walking past the former KGB Prison Cells (KGB Vangikongid) on the main street and the kids wanted to have a look.  It was a small museum but filled with lots of interesting information and cheap to enter.

These cells were used to house prisoners arrested by the state for crimes such as criticising or rebelling against the Soviet government. Prisoners were held here while undergoing their preliminary investigations, their end location being either execution or prison camps.

The cabinet for punishment was located at the end of the hall and barely big enough for us to fit in:

The solitary confinement cell was barely much bigger:

From there we returned to pick up our bags and headed down to the ferry terminal. We had a two hour wait, but wanted to make sure we made it there on time.  While we waited, Kristine cracked out her sewing kit and made some running repairs to our jackets.

We sailed about the MS Finlandia again for a two hour trip back to Helsinki.  This trip we bought ourselves dinner and spent the trip in the dining area. 

We arrived back in Helsinki at about 9pm and picked up the car. Our next accommodation was a camp ground just outside of Helsinki, so we drove there and had a decent night sleep.

The next day we had a few hours to burn before we needed to catch our ship back to Stockholm, so we decided to visit the lego shop again and look for the remaining pieces Cameron needed:

We then arrived at the Silja Symphony, our ship for the final part of our trip. This time we took the car aboard and had a cabin for our 18 hour trip.

Once we had settled into our cabin we headed out to explore the shopping area and to book in for the buffet dinner:

Looking out over the shopping from our cabin

The shopping area almost made you forget you were aboard a ship, except for the rocking of the ship that we were still feeling for a few days after we docked.

There wasn't much to see outside as it was pitch black and raining, but we checked anyway:

One cool small feature was the clocks, since there was an hour time difference between Finland and Sweden, the clocks had two hour hands, marked with each countries flag:

After dinner we headed back to the cabin and had a decent night sleep before arriving in Stockholm at 10am the next morning.

After a stop for dinner and to pick up some last shopping, we arrived at our last accommodation at around 9:30pm.  This one was a small beach cabin, which barely fitted us all in with our luggage, but was warm and had beds, which was pretty much what we needed.

We now have a week in Malmo before Kris and the kids head back.