March 31st - Reflection Of My Travels Through The Baltic States
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 31 March 2022
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
I'm at the end of my week of travel across the Baltic states where I've encountered the most majestic scenery, vibrant cities full of history and with very modern ways of living and communities who could not be friendlier or more accommodating. Unfortunately for them though, and felt especially here in Tallinn, so close to the Russian border, the invasion of Ukraine has really dampened their reopening to tourism following the pandemic. But if you can, I implore you to visit to see the for-the-moment hidden gems of these friendly, beautiful countries.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Simon Calder, welcoming you to my independent travel podcast, bringing you the latest news on travelling, whether you're just dreaming of a great escape or like lucky old me away and having the time of your life. |
| 0:19.0 | I'm coming to you from the old town in beautiful Tallinn. |
| 0:26.5 | It is the end of my week's journey across the Baltic Republic and I guess it is a case of saving the best to last. |
| 0:45.3 | I'm looking out from my hotel room into a vision of cobbled lanes and pastel painted townhouses with church spires, which are for now silent. |
| 0:52.3 | Indeed, with the exception of a distant rumble of traffic, |
| 0:57.0 | it is a very peaceful city and a wonderful testament to the way that extraordinary structures and |
| 1:10.0 | buildings survived the decades of state communism, not to |
| 1:16.2 | mention of course time under German control. But now the Estonians are free and I think happy |
| 1:26.4 | that they are lucky to live in this distant northeastern corner of continental Europe. |
| 1:33.3 | So what's in it for you? Well, I'm not here because I wanted to make any kind of political statement beyond |
| 1:42.3 | recognising that 700 miles from here in Ukraine, |
| 1:47.0 | cities, great cities such as Kiev and Odessa are being pummeled by Russian artillery. |
| 1:58.0 | And most critically, of course, people are dying as a result of this brutality |
| 2:05.7 | and the effects are reverberating way way beyond the boundaries of that beautiful and very damaged country and obviously we all want to do whatever we can |
| 2:24.8 | once Ukraine is free to help the nation recover. But the tourist industry here in Estonia has been really badly hit by it. |
| 2:38.7 | They've of course had two pretty miserable years. Things don't tend to get going here in the |
| 2:45.7 | middle of winter. I mean, it's still March for goodness sake. And the temperature this morning when I woke up actually in the city of Narva was 5 below zero. |
| 2:57.1 | A ludicrously low temperature, but this is a location pretty much as far north as certainly the Orkney Islands, but without anything like the Gulf Stream to |
| 3:09.8 | reduce the extreme cold. So bitterly cold. Anyway, so March 2020 didn't get going and they were |
| 3:20.2 | very much hoping that things would get going in March 2022. |
| 3:25.7 | But then Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine. |
| 3:30.2 | And while it's a matter of record that Americans, North Americans, so US and Canadian citizens, |
... |
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