Arriving in Tallinn approximately one week after the winter solstice I was pleasantly surprised to find that daylight lasts slightly longer than I had feared. Although I was only moving a few degrees North (from 54° to 59°), I’m less than half a degree below St. Petersburg and its famous summer White Nights. So I was slightly concerned that at this time of the year I might only have a few hours of daylight. But although it’s getting dark by around 3:30pm, it’s also getting light shortly after 9am, giving a good 6 or more hours of daylight.
It’s also considerably warmer than I was expecting. Although it was 0°C when I landed early in the morning, the lower temperatures don’t feel as cold to walk about in here than in Belfast. Today was 6°C, which is impressively high for this time of year, and apparently tomorrow will be the first New Year in quite some time with an ice-free Baltic Sea.
However, my weather widget has also been predicting rain for much of the next week, so I decided today I should really buy myself an umbrella. (In case of emergency I could probably have blagged one temporarily from just inside the entrance to the 3 Sisters hotel, which is fairly close to my apartment, but I figured I should really get my own!)
This proved slightly more difficult than I had imagined, presumably as Estonians seem generally to favour hats (often of the very silly variety) over umbrellas, but I eventually managed to track one down. My timing was perfect, as it started to snow just as I left the shop, and has continued to do so all evening.
The Old Town seemed to overrun by tourists today, so I’m sure the Town Hall Square will shortly be full of people taking photographs of a snow covered Christmas tree whilst waiting for the fireworks to start.
