The bus station was a 45min walk from the Old Town. A small station that had buses running to a variety cities, from St Petersburg to Vilnius in Lithuania. With the cold weather and the grey sky above threatening rain, it was hardly a surprise the bus was close to empty, as Pärnu was known as a beach town and this was not the time for swimming.

I was staying in a Johanna Guesthouse, just a few streets back from the beach and few streets forward to the city centre. The owner, Lii, an 80 year old brilliant little lady who spoke very little English, but told me she grew up learning to speak Russian, Finnish, and Swedish. English wasn’t a thing back in those days. However, she sure knew her way around Google Translate with lightning one finger typing, using text to speech to help her with the second language most prevalent now in her country now.

Lii only took cash, and I’d grown used to tapping my credit card and enjoyed not being shackled to the printed money. So off I went to use the ATMs for the first time, not really thinking much of it. The first two ATMs refused me, and I noticed neither had the Visa, Mastercard, or Cirrus logos. They were debit only machines, which I didn’t even think existed anymore. Thankfully the ING bank corpo gods swooped in when I realised I had been issued a Visa backed debit card. A few button presses later I had crisp new Euros in my hand.

The Pärnu City museum is a fantastic three story museum, covering the history of this area from 10,000BCE stone age findings, through to Pärnu’s identity swaps over 700 years, from being a trade hub, a Swedish fortification, the university centre of Estonia while the city of Tartu was being rebuilt, and finally becoming Estonia’s premiere beachside resort town. This city, the forth largest in Estonia, has an absolutely fascinating history.

These days it’s the most chilled out city I think I’ve ever been too. Parks are everywhere, with pet owners walking their variety of dogs, kids just running around doing, what I presume, are TikTok dances, and just a general sense of taking things slow. It didn’t matter if it was a weekend or a weekday, only handfuls of people were in the city centre, all strolling idly through the town, taking their time to take in this relaxed calm atmosphere.

The builds are traditional sloping roofs, the town centre all old mostly restored buildings with a cobbled pedestrian strip through the centre. While just blocks away grand shopping malls stand with todays modern, and comparatively boring, architecture. Mark this up there as a city I could live in. I was even eyeing off some of the beautiful but dilapidated houses wondering how much they’d cost to buy and renovate.

I was hoping to catch a boat out to Kuhnu island, a small island full of traditional Estonian culture, but it’s schedules were really bad for a day trip on a Sunday. Sadly if I’d checked this earlier, Saturday had the best times this time of year. No matter, I needed excuses to just keep things on the sloth side as my ankle had almost healed up at this point and I didn’t want to tempt the Fates with some recklessness, so I kept to lazily strolling around town blending in with the rest of the locals.

What broke the chill and relaxing ambience of Pärnu was the sudden sound of motorbikes. Out of nowhere bikes of all types came roaring around the town, like a bikie convention was taking place. I was almost correct, but wouldn’t know this was an annual event taking place until the next morning. The Estonian Motorcycle Season Opening, celebration of all things motorbikes, starts in Pärnu and makes it’s way through Estonia. It’s a shame I didn’t know what was going on, as it looks like a great day near the beach where it was being held.

I was scrolling through Maps.Me and saw there was a Mini Zoo, which I hadn’t know prior was here. Mission accepted I headed to the Mini Zoo, to find it’s basically a reptile house filled with snakes, spiders, turtles, and crocodiles. It literally looks like it was built as one mans hobby in the front of his house, and sure enough, it was. The owner being super eccentric and the driest sense of humour in human history. The small but well maintained aquariums held a fantastic collection, especially of snakes, and the owner was more than eager to get some of the pythons out for people to hold. The dude loved his snakes, but alas no Aussie snakes. He felt they were too poisonous. And to be fair, he’s not wrong.

It was time to leave and head to my last stop in Estonia, the university city of Tartu.