Enchanting Estonia

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, a group of travelers from the Philippines discovered an old city of castles and churches, fortresses and fables, Santa Claus and Skype. Enchanting Estonia, the land of old wonders and modern inventions, like Skype.

Formerly a part of the Soviet Union, enchanting Estonia has about as many islands as the Philippines but only a 10th of the population of Metro Manila.

We sailed to its capital, Tallinn, on board a luxurious ferry as part of a tour designed by Corporate International Travels and Tours Inc. (CITTI). Two hours away by boat from Finland, Tallinn is 55 minutes away from St. Petersburg in Russia.

Thus, one finds Russian-inspired, onion-shaped domes in ancient churches, caviar and Matryoshka dolls; as well as Santa Clauses, Christmas markets, cobblestoned streets and gabled roofs and town squares similar to those in Scandinavia. This colorful cultural mix makes for a fairytale land. Tallinn’s Old Town, one of the best preserved medieval cities in Europe, is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

After a short bus ride from the harbor, we explored the Old Town starting from a 15th-century watch tower and fortress, making old Tallinn a walled city. You could also see that it is a land of fairy tales, as statues of faceless robed creatures stand like sentinels in certain places.

It also has narrow, winding cobblestoned streets that lead to the historic Town Square where one of the world’s most famous Christmas markets bustles from November to December. A giant Christmas tree that glows in the dark as early as 3 p.m. (sunset comes around this time in December) is surrounded by stalls that sell anything from Christmas ornaments to reindeer’s skin, scalding hot wine to hot dogs. Performers sing Christmas songs on stage, a carousel twirls and even Santa drives around in a pickup. The square fronts the Town Hall with its Gothic Tower, and is framed by several postcard-pretty buildings that house charming cafes and souvenir shops, all twinkling with Christmas lights. Several international media organizations like Condé Nast Traveller have adjudged the Tallinn Christmas market as one of the best in the world.

“The Estonian city’s Rotermann Quarter provides a fairytale setting for one of Europe’s prettiest markets, not least because it has been almost always blessed with snow since the event was founded 20 years ago,” the media entity said.

A Christmas market in Europe evokes images of the storybooks I read as a child — snow-covered gabled rooftops, Gothic Towers, giant fir trees, snowmen with colorful mufflers and people wearing mittens and boots to church. Walking into Tallinn’s Christmas market was like walking into an ancient past that one only read about, and a near past that one enjoyed imagining as one’s mother told stories from a fairytale book.

Part of my childlike wonder at being in Estonia came from being in a land I had never been to. A new country, a new culture, but with the old familiar traditions of a universal Christian celebration like Christmas, and wonders that I had only imagined and dreamed about.

CITTI Tours president Shan Dioquino David, who included Estonia in our Ultimate Lapland itinerary in Finland (which included a visit to Santa Claus Village, sleigh rides, and chasing the Aurora Borealis in the Arctic Circle and exploring the capital Helsinki), says “there is a child in each of us” that loves Christmas, that loves fairy tales, that loves discovering new things and places.

Enchanting Estonia was the perfect end to the storybook seven-day trip she creatively put together. Our “sleigh” from the Philippines was Turkish Airlines, whose 12-hour flight from Manila to Istanbul virtually guaranteed no jet-lag to passengers traveling to Europe. The schedule allowed one to sleep, watch a good movie and have delicious meals prepared by chefs on board. After a brief stopover in Istanbul, where the airport is a shopping mecca with its mini “Grand Bazaar,” we flew another three hours to Helsinki.

You can still catch Shan’s fairytale-trip until March, or if you want to experience Christmas like they illustrated it in Hans Christian Andersen’s and Grimm’s fairy tales, book your tour for November or December next year.

There is a saying by Tom Stoppard, “If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.”

 (For inquiries, call Corporate International Travel and Tours at 631-6541 or e-mail [email protected]. For Turkish Airlines inquiries, call 0917-8720089 or e-mail [email protected].)

(You may e-mail me at [email protected].)