Spring Days in Tartu

Kevad on käes! - Spring is at hand, so all Estonians celebrate the warm weather.
In Tartu, the city stops during a week with the traditional Student Spring Days.

During the weekend, there are many concerts, competitions, and events for young people to celebrate! Take a look at some of the events in the 2009 Program:

Wednesday - Wet T-shirt Competition
Thursday - Downhill Box car racing
Sunday - Red Bull Flying Machines

Or you can see the pictures from the events of previous years, like:

Wet T-shirt competition

Female Mud Fight

Beer cage climbing

Bambus - Downhill kart racing

Red Bull Flying Machines

Sounds Interesting? All this together with a great mood, beer and food waits you in the city of good thoughts

Winter in Estonia - Ice Skating

One of the pleasures of winter is to engage in Winter Sports. In Estonia, you have many places where you can try Ice Skating all year around, but only during winter you can try ice skating in open air, like in frozen lakes in town, or if you are more adventurous, in the frozen baltic sea. (Yeah, it freezes, and usually each winter there are official driving roads from the mainland to the islands).

Jeti Ice Hall, near the Ülemiste Center, has many indoors ice rinks available for Ice Skating, Figure Skating, Curling and Ice Hokey.

The Linnahall Ice Hall is a ice skating rink closer to the city center, but open only on Fridays and weekends.

The Old Town Outdoor Skating Rink is open only during winters, but there you can skate every day of the week from 10:00 to 22:00. You can even check out how many people is skating with the Skate Rink WebCam.

In Tartu, there's Liuväli, a full size skating arena in LõunaKeskus, with the best ice rink, but you have the check the schedule, not all the hours are available for ice skating, as they have Hokey trainings and Figure Skating.

But if you are looking for more, why not Ice Skate on the Frozen Baltic Sea? 360.ee offers Ice Skating in Big Open spaces, like many of the Estonian big lakes or in Baltic Sea, between Haapsalu and Vormsi. Be prepared to skate for more than 4h, more than 20km, in a wild and beautiful scenario, surrounded by ice and Estonian Nature. See what kind of adventures you can do in some of their online pictures (Estonian language required)...

... Or you can check my pictures when I was skating in the Baltic Sea!


Do you have any comments on Ice Skating in Estonia? Leave your opinion below on the comments!

City Busses in Tartu - Estonia

If you live in Tartu, or is going to stay for a while, then you will be happy to know that this city has a good network of buses and microbuses. Check the bus lines map (bussiliinid) to see where is the closer bus stop, and then check the Bus Timetables at the BussiInfo site.

So, how can I use the buses? If you pick the yellow microbus (Automen Ekspressbussid), then you pay 15 eek to the driver when you enter and that's all. But if you are taking the city GO buses, it gets a little bit more interesting! Randomly red cars from private security enters the bus checking if you have a valid ticket. If you don't, you will be eligible for a 600 eek fine!

So see below how you can buy your ticket and don't travel like a rabbit (Jänes, like the estonians say for the one who travels without paying).

You can buy your tickets in the bus with the bus driver (16 eek in cash for 1h trip), or by little one-trip punchable bus tickets (13 eek, 8 for students) in advance at the R-kiosks (just remember to punch them when you enter the bus. You can also buy a 10 bus tickets pack, with great discount (100 eek, 10 eek each, way cheaper)!

If you need to use more than one bus trip, then you can get the paper one-day ticket, 30-days ticket, or even a 90-days ticket. You don't need to punch them, they are dated in the R-kiosk when you buy it. More info about the prices (in estonian) at the nice City of Tartu website .

But of course, in Estonia, an electronic solution is also available: Id Pilet . With your Estonian ID, you can buy your hour ticket, day ticket, 30 days ticket or 90 days ticket from Internet or mobile phone, and its cheaper than the paper version! I've been told that some people try to buy them when they see the ticket fiscals car in the bus stop, but I haven't seen that yet :)

Just be careful because every season the bus time tables changes, and sometimes some roads are in repair, making some bus lines changes as well.

Well, for a city where you can get from the city center to the city limits in half an hour walking, maybe its better to walk. What do you say?