Update: Sun 01:35

Saturday, 24 September

I'd um'ed and ah'ed about going down to the Catherine Palace and seeing the Amber Room but some guy being interviewed in Kiev in just a t-shirt swayed my view. It's time I remembered this is a summer holiday. Russia has been great barring my lack of preparedness for the costs and the bloody awful weather. I should come back when it is more amenable to this fair weather fiend.

At least it wasn't raining when I packed the bike this morning though it wasn't looking very promising. I'd carefully handed over all but a single 1000R note to the hotel as part payment as I would need petrol and potentially to pay a man to do things with a tyre that it simply to grim to do myself in this weather -- though the effort required to get the rear tyre off the wheel by hand would certainly warm me up.

However, the first payment of the day was to the toll booth woman on the ZSD new road for the 30R toll. Surprisingly, she didn't bemoan my choice of note. The ZDS is actually rather funky taking the form of a giant snaking ribcage with the body of the roadway having a curve that matches the curving overhead lighting. Far too adventurous for the UK.

And then it started to rain. A lot. At the border with Estonia there was a big queue down the hill. Trucks in the nearside going nowhere and at first sight cars in the outside lane going nowhere as well. There was a solid white line which I was loathe to cross in case there were any police hiding further round the bend but after several coaches ploughed straight down the other carriageway I took advantage of a rare movement forward of the traffic to enhance my position in the queue. It was moving painfully slowly. The guard was only letting a few cars through at a time then shutting the barrier for another ten minutes. Not so bad in a car. Very soggy on a motorbike.

As an aside, there's an impressive couple of medieval fortresses either side of the river at the border crossing.

Once into the border area there was the usual lack of clarity as to what to do or where to go. Some people jump out of their cars as soon as possible and somehow know where to go, I followed the lead of the man in front. Who remained in his car until the area under the canopy being used for searches was clear. He then parked just under the canopy at the stop line leaving me slightly outside.

We went over to the first hut where my customs document from Kazakhstan, part of the trade zone with Russia, was looked at with some scepticism. I was then asked to fill in another (vaguely similar form) through the waist height window (I think I've moaned about these waist height windows before -- do they regularly get midgets coming through and couldn't they provide a box rather than have the vast majority of the population stoop ridiculously to converse with the officer?). Having filled in what I could she then ticked some boxes that I'd missed and everything seemed OK. During this time an absolute deluge came down. I remembered that I'd left my gloves on the seat. Bugger.

I had to move the bike forward into the search area where the guy took one look and decided it wasn't worth the effort and sent me onto the police check at the next hut. They did their thing (including checking my vehicle documents, why is that?) before stamping me out of Russia. No need to go anywhere for immigration.

Hurray onto the EU (for such is Estonia these days). And another queue in the pouring rain. I guess, as an EU border country, they have to make sure there are no ne'er-do-wells sneaking in. When finally allowed into the border area from no-man's land I made my way to the first booth where the guy shook his head. Oh, OK, I went to the second booth where the guy closed the window on me. Welcome to the EU!

Someone then called me over and wanted to check my chassis number (and fortunately not the mythical engine number). He then sent me to the first window again. But I've been here and was sent away, I noted. That's because you arrived at the window in the wrong order, you were no the first vehicle in the area. Oh, right. A quick check of the paperwork and then I can get going.

I was wondering if the fact that the GPS wasn't turning on was that it was goosed again but it's the rather more mundane fact that I can't do anything useful with these (sodden -- sodding?) gloves on including press a fiddly little button.

It then took a while but eventually the rain stopped and it dried out though it never warmed up much above the 11C it'd been all day. Rare flashes of sunlight only created stupifying glare.

I stopped for a coffee at some little place. There hadn't been much in the way of cafes on the road. There were coffee cup and knife and fork signs but usually for a hotel several km off the main road. There were several on the main road but as I whizzed by none shouted out cafe. I think because in Estonian they don't say cafe. In fact, there didn't appear to be much in the way of consistency about what they were called.

Anyway, I stopped in this one place where the woman running the shop saw me and came over and turned the coffee machine on without asking me what I wanted. A few minutes later as I wandered about looking for some cake-like source of nutrition she poured some water into it and finally asked me if I wanted a coffee. Yes please. And a Mars bar.

While I warmed up in the corner the blokey came over and insisted I use the free wifi on the phone (Liverpool were 1-0 up at the time thanks to a Wolves own goal) and then she came up and deposited three apples on the table insisting I take them, a gift from her garden. Top!

The first hostel was full -- I eventually gleaned -- but this place, a budget hotel, had a room for EUR35. It's fine for what it is though being budget manages to attract the sort of people who make a racket until 1am.

I trotted into Tallin Old Town and very pretty and medieval it is too, entertainers in the square and son et lumiere played out against the dominating church wall. Chock full of nice cafes and restaurants (and bars and nightclubs). Naturally, I spent more on dinner than the room. Bah, it's only money!

My only complaint is that my nose has kept running all day and is now becoming a fully fledged cold.

I think I might spend another night here as the LP's comments for other Estonia options hinted at summer time. I'm cold and wet as it is. Do I really want to go bog-shoeing? I have no idea what that is but they say in winter you can go snow-shoeing in the same place.

Currently at lat/long: n59 26.272 e24 46.087

City Hotel, Tallinn, Estonia