Memories and hints of a travelling IT professional.
When preparing for the trip to Tallinn, Estonia the English name for the country somehow had a strange sound for me. But I couldn’t remember why. That changed only when I was standing in front of the memorial ‘Katkenud liin‘ (broken line) – it remembers the victims of a ferry disaster in 1994. The ferry boat ESTONIA sank on its way from Tallinn, Estonia to Stockholm, Sweden and 852 persons lost their lifes.
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Travelling by public transport through Tallinn, Estonia is easy and fun. The transport system uses tramways, bussess and trolley busses – like in a lottery you sometimes get a brand new one or a historic vehicle. Locals typically use smartcards they can charge up and validate them when entering the vehicle at any door. You can also buy tickets by using the ‘pilet.ee‘ smartphone app (‘pilet‘ means ticket).
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The lennujaam (airport) of Tallinn, Estonia is a fantastic small airport. The people there are relaxed and quite, the terminal building is short, the shops are nice and the waiting areas creative and really inviting. It is only a short way to the tram stop (line 4 stops here and brings you to the city center) and when standing outside the airport you’re still standing directly at the airfield and can watch plains.
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It’s a simple but good coffee bar and restaurant close to the central campus of the university of Kassel, Germany. Located at the Gottschalkstraße just 100 meters afar from the main lecture buildings this place is often crowded with students. They offer seats inside but also have a medium size outdoor terrace where you can sit next to the quiet street.
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The Landesmuseum Hannover is a special museum located between the Sprengel-Museum and the Neues Rathaus of Hannover, Germany. It calls itself ‘WeltenMuseum‘ because it shows different separate worlds: nature, mankind and art. The building in renaissance revival architecture style was built in 1902.
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Directly next to the Maschsee at Hannover, Germany you can find one of the most important museums of modern art in Germany. It focusses on German expressionism and modern art of French artists. The starting point was the collection of Margit and Bernhard Sprengel – chocolate factory owners from Hannover-Vinnhorst.
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The Großer Garten (great garden) is the centerpiece of the Herrenhäuser Gärten and the most important tourist highlight of Hannover, Germany. It is a vast French formal garden that is seen as one of the most significant of its kind. The garden has a rectangular shape and is 905 meters long and 555 meters wide. It dates back to the 17th century CE.
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In 1666 the House of Welf was in need of a place to grow vegetables and created the Berggarten on a sand dune from the last glacial period (therefore the name ‘mountain garden‘). Later greenhouses were built to grow rice, tobacco and morus plants. Since the year 1750 it is solely a botanical garden and one of the oldest in Germany. It also contains a mausoleum for members of the House of Welf.
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The Herrenhäuser Gärten in Hannover, Germany are well-known as beautiful English landscape gardens. When people speak of them they most often mean the Großer Garten (great garden) – but there are also other ones: the Berggarten (on the opposite side of the street), the Welfengarten (close to the university) and last but not least the Georgengarten arranged next to the former Herrenhäuser Allee.
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It is one of the most beautiful townhall buildings in Germany: the Neues Rathaus at Hannover. That is a bit confusing as the ‘new’ townhall is already pretty old – it was built between 1903 and 1911 CE. It became necessary as the old townhall building from the year 1230 became too small because of the massive expansion of the city. It really looks like a castle and is still in use today – as the seat of the administration and the mayor.
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