What a time we had. Anyone interested in a nice destination that won't
cost an arm and a leg should consider a trip to Tallinn, Estonia. There
is a terrific old town with lots of great shops, bars and restaurants.
The food was great. We took my niece, her husband and two kids to a
place where we had a terrific meal and the bill for the 6 of us was only
$120. My wife and I had dinner in a medieval style restaurant that
served only foods that would have been used in the 15th century. I had a
wild boar platter with ...wild boar, of course, barley, sauerkraut,
picked vegetables, onion jam, and berries. With drinks, dessert and
coffee it was only $80.

We had tremendous hospitality in Sweden. We stayed with an old friend of
my wife who had a country house in Stronsholm and we stayed in their
guest house, a cottage overlooking a lake. We were wined and dined and
were not allowed to take them out for dinner, though I did manage to pay
for a few lunches. The Midsummer dinner was a feast, mostly fish,
washed down with beer, schnapps and wine. Our hostess served 7 different
types of herring. smoked salmon, smoked eel, meatballs and smoked
reindeer. We attended the town's Midsummer celebrations in a park across
from the Stronsholm castle where there was folk dancing.

Copenhagen was great. We had a nice dinner in one of the restaurants in
Tivoli. It is a beautiful park. It was a little pricey, but my lamb
shanks were delicious. Yesterday we splurged on a great lunch by the
canal in Nyhaven. We both ordered the Nyhaven platter, a selection of 5
types of Smorsbrot; marinated herring, smoked salmon with shrimps and
caviar, fried plaice, roast beef with (dry) fried onions, and Danish
brie. After a nap in the hotel we went back for dinner in Nyhaven where
I had a really nice rib eye steak and my wife had lamb.

We are exhausted. We didn't get much sleep. It didn't get dark in
Tallin and Sweden. The sun went down around midnight and was back up
shortly after 1 am, and it never really got dark. Copenhagen was a
little darker at night. We are also tired from all the walking we did.
It's a good thing we are in reasonable condition because we did a lot of
walking everywhere. We figured that on our last day in Copenhagen we
walked at least 12 miles. Despite all the good food we ate, especially
eating Danish pastries at every opportunity, I lost 8 pounds.

Dave Smith wrote:
> My wife and I had dinner in a medieval style restaurant that
> served only foods that would have been used in the 15th century. I had a
> wild boar platter with ...wild boar, of course, barley, sauerkraut,
> picked vegetables, onion jam, and berries. With drinks, dessert and
> coffee it was only $80.


Sounds great. Coffee in the 15th century?


--Lia

Julia Altshuler wrote:

> Dave Smith wrote:
> > My wife and I had dinner in a medieval style restaurant that
> > served only foods that would have been used in the 15th century. I had a
> > wild boar platter with ...wild boar, of course, barley, sauerkraut,
> > picked vegetables, onion jam, and berries. With drinks, dessert and
> > coffee it was only $80.
>
> Sounds great. Coffee in the 15th century?

Curious ain't it. But if it helps at all, we had to wait a long time for it
:-)

Michael \"Dog3\" wrote:

>
>
> > My wife and I had dinner in a medieval style restaurant that
> > served only foods that would have been used in the 15th century. I had
> > wild boar platter with ...wild boar, of course, barley, sauerkraut,
> > picked vegetables, onion jam, and berries. With drinks, dessert and
> > coffee it was only $80.
>
> Ohhh... How did it taste? I've never had wild boar.

It was pretty good. It was a hearty pork taste. I have to say that the pork
in Estonia is very good. Our niece cooked pork chops for dinner and it was
the best pork I had eaten in years. It tasted more like the pork I remember
from when I was a kind. It had flavour.

> > We are exhausted. We didn't get much sleep. It didn't get dark in
> > Tallin and Sweden. The sun went down around midnight and was back up
> > shortly after 1 am, and it never really got dark. Copenhagen was a
> > little darker at night. We are also tired from all the walking we did.
> > It's a good thing we are in reasonable condition because we did a lot
> > walking everywhere. We figured that on our last day in Copenhagen we
> > walked at least 12 miles. Despite all the good food we ate, especially
> > eating Danish pastries at every opportunity, I lost 8 pounds.
>
> Danish... I'll bet the Danish was good. Sounds like a great trip.
> Seriously. Got pics?

I can't post them here but I will l email you some. I took some with the
digital and plan to scan some I took with a real camera. The trip turned
out to be so much cheaper than I expected that maybe I should use some of
the extra to buy a good digital

Dave Smith wrote:
>
> Curious ain't it. But if it helps at all, we had to wait a long time for it
> :-)


5 centuries?


But seriously, I'm also interested in whether you had any trouble
finding English speakers. Were you generally able to understand and
make yourselves understood?


--Lia

Dave Smith said...

> What a time we had. Anyone interested in a nice destination that won't
> cost an arm and a leg should consider a trip to Tallinn, Estonia. There
> is a terrific old town with lots of great shops, bars and restaurants.
> The food was great. We took my niece, her husband and two kids to a
> place where we had a terrific meal and the bill for the 6 of us was only
> $120. My wife and I had dinner in a medieval style restaurant that
> served only foods that would have been used in the 15th century. I had a
> wild boar platter with ...wild boar, of course, barley, sauerkraut,
> picked vegetables, onion jam, and berries. With drinks, dessert and
> coffee it was only $80.
>
> We had tremendous hospitality in Sweden. We stayed with an old friend of
> my wife who had a country house in Stronsholm and we stayed in their
> guest house, a cottage overlooking a lake. We were wined and dined and
> were not allowed to take them out for dinner, though I did manage to pay
> for a few lunches. The Midsummer dinner was a feast, mostly fish,
> washed down with beer, schnapps and wine. Our hostess served 7 different
> types of herring. smoked salmon, smoked eel, meatballs and smoked
> reindeer. We attended the town's Midsummer celebrations in a park across
> from the Stronsholm castle where there was folk dancing.
>
> Copenhagen was great. We had a nice dinner in one of the restaurants in
> Tivoli. It is a beautiful park. It was a little pricey, but my lamb
> shanks were delicious. Yesterday we splurged on a great lunch by the
> canal in Nyhaven. We both ordered the Nyhaven platter, a selection of 5
> types of Smorsbrot; marinated herring, smoked salmon with shrimps and
> caviar, fried plaice, roast beef with (dry) fried onions, and Danish
> brie. After a nap in the hotel we went back for dinner in Nyhaven where
> I had a really nice rib eye steak and my wife had lamb.
>
> We are exhausted. We didn't get much sleep. It didn't get dark in
> Tallin and Sweden. The sun went down around midnight and was back up
> shortly after 1 am, and it never really got dark. Copenhagen was a
> little darker at night. We are also tired from all the walking we did.
> It's a good thing we are in reasonable condition because we did a lot of
> walking everywhere. We figured that on our last day in Copenhagen we
> walked at least 12 miles. Despite all the good food we ate, especially
> eating Danish pastries at every opportunity, I lost 8 pounds.


Dave,

Great vacation report! Lucky BUMS!!!

And thanks for the "Wish you were here" postcard and the T-shirt!

No matter where I've been in the world and the great times, there's no
better feeling, imho, than being home again! Welcome back!!!

Get new shoes!!!

Best to you and yours!

Andy

Sounds like a very nice trip- thanks for the recap. When I went to
Italy about 12 years ago, we ate like piggies, but did a lot of
walking also, and I lost at least 10 pounds! That's a great vacation
when you can eat, have fun, & lose weight!

Julia Altshuler wrote:
>
> Dave Smith wrote:
> > My wife and I had dinner in a medieval style restaurant that
> > served only foods that would have been used in the 15th century. I had a
> > wild boar platter with ...wild boar, of course, barley, sauerkraut,
> > picked vegetables, onion jam, and berries. With drinks, dessert and
> > coffee it was only $80.
>
> Sounds great. Coffee in the 15th century?

Acording to this, coffee was discovered in Ethiopia
in the 10th century:

http://www.american.edu/TED/ethcoff.htm

Though other sources say the 9th century.

According to legend it didn't become well known
in Europe until one of the unsuccessful attacks
by the Ottoman Turks on Vienna. In their haste
to withdraw, they left behind a large supply
of coffee beans. Somebody recognized what
they were, and that was what kicked off
European interest in coffee.

It's also likely that Europeans would have
been exposed to coffee during the Crusades.

"Mark Thorson" schrieb :
> Julia Altshuler wrote:
>>
>> Dave Smith wrote:
>> > My wife and I had dinner in a medieval style restaurant that
>> > served only foods that would have been used in the 15th century. I had a
>> > wild boar platter with ...wild boar, of course, barley, sauerkraut,
>> > picked vegetables, onion jam, and berries. With drinks, dessert and
>> > coffee it was only $80.
>>
>> Sounds great. Coffee in the 15th century?
>
> Acording to this, coffee was discovered in Ethiopia
> in the 10th century:
>
> http://www.american.edu/TED/ethcoff.htm
>
> Though other sources say the 9th century.
>
> According to legend it didn't become well known
> in Europe until one of the unsuccessful attacks
> by the Ottoman Turks on Vienna. In their haste
> to withdraw, they left behind a large supply
> of coffee beans. Somebody recognized what
> they were, and that was what kicked off
> European interest in coffee.
>
Well, the first "Kaffeehaus" in Vienna indeed opened
shortly after the Turks were kicked out (in 1567).
Whether the beans came from the supplies left behind is unknown.

> It's also likely that Europeans would have
> been exposed to coffee during the Crusades.

And by two Turkish wars against the HRE.

Cheers,

Michael Kuettner

Welcome home! For whatever reason I thought you'd be
gone half the summer (slight exaggeration). Thanks for the
write-up, I enjoyed reading about your trip.

nancy

merryb wrote:

> Sounds like a very nice trip- thanks for the recap. When I went to
> Italy about 12 years ago, we ate like piggies, but did a lot of
> walking also, and I lost at least 10 pounds! That's a great vacation
> when you can eat, have fun, & lose weight!

Believe me we walked. My niece lives about a mile from the old town,
which is on a hill. On the day after we arrived we walked up to and
around the old town, wandered around and then back to the apartment to
change. And then we walked back up to the very top to have coffee and
cake with the Irish Ambassador. His wife is a good friend of my nice and
they wanted to meet me because, small world that it is, his sister lives
just down the road from me. The next day we walked the other direction
to the old palace of the czar (from the Russian czarist Russian days,
then over to the Kuma art gallery and all around that. The next day we
took a bus out to the open air museum of old Estonian buildings. It was
a mile walk from the bus stop to the museum and then at least a mile
around there, then back to the bus stop. The day after that my wife and
I walked up to the old town and around.. The last day we only walked
about two miles total.

In Sweden we were walking 4-5 miles each day, plus a 25 km. bike ride
through the countryside. I can't say that we starved anywhere. They eat
lots of rich dairy products. We did not eat many sweets in Sweden, other
than ice cream and strawberries almost every day. We did have pastries
and coffee in one old town we visited, but we walked at least two miles
that day.

Copenhagen involved lots and lots of walking. we could have taken the
subway or bus, but it was nice to walk around because there is so much
to see along the way.

A word of advice to anyone visiting those places....... comfortable
shoes. Most of the pedestrian area are cobblestone.

Nancy Young wrote:

> Welcome home! For whatever reason I thought you'd be
> gone half the summer (slight exaggeration). Thanks for the
> write-up, I enjoyed reading about your trip.
>

Only two weeks on this trip. My other European trips have been
for three weeks.
As for summer...... it was cool and windy and/or rainy most of
the time. everyone said that it had been much hotter for 2-3
weeks before we arrived.

Julia Altshuler wrote:

> Dave Smith wrote:
> >
> > Curious ain't it. But if it helps at all, we had to wait a long time for it
> > :-)
>
> 5 centuries?

Not quite. It was a strange experience. Our table was on a raised platform on the
street in front of the restaurant. We had a very pleasant waitress who took a
break from work by coming around to the far side and talked with us for close to
half an hour.


> But seriously, I'm also interested in whether you had any trouble
> finding English speakers. Were you generally able to understand and
> make yourselves understood?

We had no problem finding English spoken in Tallinn. The only person I
encountered in Sweden who did no understand english was in an ice cream shop.
English was not a problem at all in Denmark, with one exception. When we to visit
my father's grave we talked with the minister at the church who insisted that we
had to go and see the chairman of the church council. I was reluctant because I
know that he doesn't speak any English, and that he would babble away in Danish.
Previous experience was that he would carry on and on. Sure enough, that is what
happened. He was quite frantic that he could not get hold of anyone to come over
and translate for us. He ended up phoning the minister and she translated over
the phone. We were just about to make our escape when his neighbour came over and
we were able to explain that he had to get going.

This was my fourth trip to western europe in the last 15 years and I have never
had much difficulty finding people speak English. The only places that was a
problem was in Italy and Belgium. In Scandinavia, Germany, France and Holland,
almost everyone speaks English, and most of them speak it very well.

Michael Kuettner wrote:
>
> Well, the first "Kaffeehaus" in Vienna indeed opened
> shortly after the Turks were kicked out (in 1567).
> Whether the beans came from the supplies left behind is unknown.

According to this, the legend is that it was opened
shortly after the Battle of Vienna in 1683.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Franciszek_Kulczycki

Julia Altshuler wrote:

> Dave Smith wrote:
> >
> > Curious ain't it. But if it helps at all, we had to wait a long time for
it
> > :-)
>
>
> 5 centuries?
>
>
> But seriously, I'm also interested in whether you had any trouble
> finding English speakers. Were you generally able to understand and
> make yourselves understood?


IIRC in Estonia English is compulsory in schools, plus which it's a pretty
high - tech place so knowing English is pretty much a given for many. The
Estonian constitution declares that internet access is a "basic human
right", virtually everything (voting, bill - paying, etc.) is done online,
internet access is cheap or free. Citizens carry around a microchipped ID
card which gives access to many online services, etc.:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3603943.stm


During Soviet times Estonia was the only place in the USSR that could
receive Western TV broadcasts, from across the way in Helsinki (Russians
referred to Estonia and the other Baltic states as "our abroad", as it was
the closest to a Western - type atmosphere most of them could ever
experience. Relatively prosperous capitalist countries in the 1918 - 1940
period, the standard of living was higher, etc.). Additionally, Estonia has
historically had close relationships with Finland and the Scandinavian
countries, after communism they helped Estonia to "get on it's feet" pretty
quickly with aid and investment...so it's a pretty cosmopolitan place.
Tallinn is a popular destination for Finnish day - trippers who come over
for the cheap booze, also for Brits and other West Europeans who fly in for
"stag" and "hen" weekends of boozing and carousing...

--
Best
Greg

Dave Smith wrote:
> What a time we had. Anyone interested in a nice destination that won't
> cost an arm and a leg should consider a trip to Tallinn, Estonia.

That's one place we haven't been in the region. A few trips ago we took
the overnight ferry to Helsinki, our choice over Tallin at the time.
Glad to hear Estonia is still one of the cheap places--the others sure
arent't

>
> We had tremendous hospitality in Sweden.

We have had exactly your experience every time I've been there.
Everyone is eager to show you the best their country has to offer.
I was leery about the herring and game meat, but enjoyed it all.


> Copenhagen was great. We had a nice dinner in one of the restaurants in
> Tivoli. It is a beautiful park.

Yes, and we loved Nyhavn. Copenhagen and Stockholm are laid out well
for walking and have really good public transportation for long
distances. Our last trip two years ago, we were disappointed that the
Stroget (walking street) in Copenhagen had been transposed from a
street full of local artisan shops to a high fashion designer mall.
Much of the charm has been lost as a result.

>
> We are exhausted. We didn't get much sleep.

> We are also tired from all the walking we did.


Don't discount the jet lag, either. It plays a big part for about a
week after you get back. The 8 hr. time difference is significant.

I'm so glad you had a good time.

gloria p

On Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:02:19 -0400, Dave Smith
> wrote:

>What a time we had.

Nice read. Glad to see you back.

Lou

Gloria P wrote:

> Yes, and we loved Nyhavn. Copenhagen and Stockholm are laid out well
> for walking and have really good public transportation for long
> distances. Our last trip two years ago, we were disappointed that the
> Stroget (walking street) in Copenhagen had been transposed from a
> street full of local artisan shops to a high fashion designer mall.
> Much of the charm has been lost as a result.

Sad isn't it. I think that has happened over the years since I was first
there in 1999. When I was there two years later there seemed to be more and
mark of the marketing hype, and even more this time. It is also disappointed
to see all the advertising on the buildings. It was bad enough that the
buildings across from the city hall have so many neon signs on them, but at
least you only see that at night. What was really disappointing in the
Stroget was to see a lovely old building covered with a huge sign.

"Mark Thorson" > schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
> Michael Kuettner wrote:
>>
>> Well, the first "Kaffeehaus" in Vienna indeed opened
>> shortly after the Turks were kicked out (in 1567).
>> Whether the beans came from the supplies left behind is unknown.
>
> According to this, the legend is that it was opened
> shortly after the Battle of Vienna in 1683.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Franciszek_Kulczycki

Ooops, you're right. I picked the wrong siege.
Btw, the oldest still existing Kaffeehaus in Austria is the Tomaselli
in Salzburg (since 1705).

Cheers,

Michael Kuettner