Talinn, Estonia

July 27, 2022

Sometimes the best days begin with only a vague idea of where you're going.

That was certainly true in Tallinn.

We arrived aboard Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas, a ship we really enjoyed. Our stateroom was right at the bow, with an extraordinary view straight ahead over the ship, so we had watched Tallinn appear in front of us as we came into port.

Talinn before the tourists

We got ourselves and our Bromptons off the ship fairly early. We knew two things: we wanted to ride through Tallinn's Old Town, and I had read somewhere that there was a bike route running eastward along the Baltic coast toward the Tallinn TV Tower.

That was our entire plan.

It was around 8:00 in the morning when we rode into Tallinn's Old Town, and the streets were wonderfully empty.

Tallinn is famous for its beautifully preserved medieval center, but this early we didn't have to negotiate crowds of tourists. We wandered on the Bromptons along cobblestone streets between pastel buildings, going wherever something looked interesting.

People suspected of opposing the Soviet occupation were imprisoned and interrogated in the building's basement. Today the cells are preserved as a museum associated with Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom.

We didn't go inside. We were on bicycles and had a whole city in front of us.

But simply passing the entrance was chilling.

Very quickly, though, the morning became something more than sightseeing.

On Pikk Street we passed Pikk 59, where the KGB once maintained prison and interrogation cells.

We Turned a Corner — and Found Russia

A little farther along we rode onto another narrow cobblestone street and suddenly began seeing flags, posters, photographs, homemade signs and protest banners.

At first we didn't understand what we were seeing.

Then we saw the Russian flag hanging from the building.

We had happened upon the Russian Embassy.

This was July 2022, just a few months after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Others were obviously handmade. There were Ukrainian flags, flowers and signs pleading, Please help Ukraine. Another simply said, Stop killing people.

The sidewalk barriers outside the embassy had been covered with expressions of grief, fury, and solidarity with Ukraine. Some were professionally printed exhibits explaining Soviet repression and Russian aggression.

There are excellent public restrooms nearby, too, which is the sort of detail that becomes surprisingly important when you spend your vacations wandering around foreign countries on bicycles.

And as we sailed away, Sakurajima was still there in the late afternoon light, ash wafting from the crater.

Our Second Visit — March 2025

Almost exactly a year later, we arrived back in Kagoshima, this time aboard Holland America’s Noordam.

We came across several fire stations as we rode, and some had their garage doors covered with wonderful artwork drawn by local schoolchildren.

At some point we entertained the idea that perhaps we could ride the Bromptons farther up Sakurajima toward the observation area up the side of the volcano, as high as the general public is normally allowed.

YUNOHIRA OBSERVATORY

1,224 ft / 373 m above sea level

*** 5.1km climb *** 6.4% average grade *** 14% maximum grade ***

We could not.

It was charming, but it also said something about the place. Even the children grow up knowing that the volcano, fires and emergency preparation are part of everyday life.

One showed a fire engine, Sakurajima brooding in the background, and a slightly alarmed firefighter confronting a blaze.

This was where the ride became really interesting.

We rode past citrus trees, flowering camellias, gardens and cultivated fields, all growing in soil dusted with volcanic ash.

That was another surprise about Sakurajima. You might expect the landscape around an active volcano to look harsh and barren. Instead, much of it is intensely green and fertile, even in March. The ash is everywhere, but so are farms and gardens.

We traveled to Japan three years in a row, in the spring, and happened upon many different examples of disaster planning. It was all so interesting that we made a separate presentation.

At Oshu Elementary School, for example, a large sign identifies the school grounds as a designated emergency evacuation area. Nearby, another sign marks an emergency water-supply location.

It is one thing to read about living beside an active volcano in a visitor center. Riding through the neighborhoods makes it much more real.

Google Maps worked extremely well, which gave us the confidence to wander without worrying too much about getting lost.

By then we had spent two visits being fascinated by the extraordinary amount of preparation that goes into living beside an active volcano, so happening upon an actual training exercise felt like seeing another piece of the same story.

This time, instead of folding the bikes and taking the shuttle from the ferry terminal back to the cruise port, we decided to ride the approximately 6.6 miles back to the Noordam.

On our way back we came across a Kagoshima fire-service training facility while firefighters were actively training. There were fire engines and rescue vehicles lined up outside, and we stopped with the bikes to watch.

We met a man there who, as best we understood it, was the director of the fire department’s band.

It was such an unexpectedly perfect ending to the day.

The ride

March 2024: About 6.1 miles, riding east from the Sakurajima ferry terminal along the coast and returning.

What We Liked

Almost everything.

We loved riding on an active volcano, learning about the extraordinary amount of disaster planning that goes into living there, wandering through the quiet agricultural areas, watching the bicycle race, soaking our feet afterward, and repeatedly encountering people who went out of their way to help us.

Sakurajima is also one of those places where bicycles let us see things we probably never would have noticed from a tour bus — little fire stations, farm lanes, ash-covered fields, evacuation infrastructure and debris-control structures tucked into the landscape.

And the Visitor Center has one of the better gift shops we have encountered.

Volcanic-ash-dyed socks are hard to beat.

What We Would Do Differently

We have now established this beyond reasonable doubt: we are not riding our Bromptons up Sakurajima to the observation station.

The volcano is just too steep.

Next time, we would still bring the bikes, because the riding around the lower parts of Sakurajima is terrific. But we would use the sightseeing bus that circles the area and stops at the observation point to get higher up the mountain.

There is no particular prize for proving that two people in their sixties can push folding bicycles up a volcano. Although the lack of a prize has never stopped us before.