Immediately obvious is that Tartu is a university city. The city centre is filled with millennials, 20 year old’s wearing hipster fashion to make them stand out from the other sheep, and with a music festival heating up the coming weekend, the muso’s and goths began filtering into the city by the end of the week. I’m not even sure if some of them even were over 18 in some of the pubs there were in, their faces full of petri dish levels of acne.

The next tip off that students owned this city, the food options exploded with fast food burger joints, and several kebab holes a the wall. I was seriously tempted to get a kebab after the bus ride, but not knowing how close the apartment I booked was, and whether it would be mystery meat and travel directly through my bowls, I decided to leave that option off the lunch table.

The area around Tartu had various settlements by Estonians and Russians since the 6th Century. In the 13th Century the German Livonian Order made their way here and built a castle and cathedral upon Toome Hill, being named Toomemägi, or simply Cathedral Hill. And for luck, the Order threw in a bishop too. The town around Toomemägi was known as Dorpat, the German name, and it wasn’t until the end of the 19th Century would be renamed to Tartu.

The Toome Hill Park is amazingly tranquil. Near the old observatory, a group of teens ran laps around the park, teachers keeping an eye on making sure they’re doing their required exercise for the week. Another group shuffled behind their teacher as he measured out a length of the path, gave them a lecture, and one by one, they walked back along the length counting out their number of footsteps. No idea what they what measuring, but the students looked like they’d rather be somewhere else. Except for one kid. There’s always that one kid. Bloody teachers pet.

The university also runs a fairly large botanical gardens. With Spring arriving late, most the flowers hadn’t fully bloomed yet, but it still made for a pleasant wander through the green gardens and being surrounded by nature. As I was leaving a groups of kids and their adult wranglers arrived, and off they went running into the gardens for a game of hide and go seek.

Kids in general around town were highly noticeable. So noticeable in fact, the young ones worn fluro vests normally worn by construction workers if they were shrunk 100 times and lost the beer gut and cigarettes. In one group of youngsters, they were tethered altogether, which I couldn’t help but compare to those paper cut outs of people all joined together.

Stopping at a busy pub on the town hall square, I was intrigued by the same dish that everyone was ordering. And I mean everyone, a group of 5 would walk in an in moments 5 of this same dish would came out with precision speed. I had to find out, and noticed it was the days special they were all ordering. It was a steak special, with potatoes, coleslaw, and an inlands seas worth of a thick cheese looking sauce. Then I saw the price, 25 Euro. Now for the currency conversion illiterate, that’s about $40AUD. For a pub steak special. That every single patron is ordering. I’d like to personally thank the Australian beef industry for bestowing us with cheap steak back home!

Despite Tartu having an actual hill, it seems so far that Estonia, and perhaps the rest of the Baltic States, are completely flat. This of course means the infamous bikes and their lanes are everywhere. What I wasn’t expecting is how many people are using green branded rental bikes, all run by a company called Bolt. And to be contemporary with what’s beginning to happen in Sydney, e-bikes – or what we’ve started calling them, Fat Bikes – are hugely popular. For the most part the riders are behaved, but I swear I saw too many times food delivery riders (also branded Bolt) just launching off the bike lines and into pedestrian paths. I’ve seen future Sydney with Fat Bike riders, and I don’t like it.

I needed a castle fix, and the town of Viljandi was an hour away that promised castle goodness. With bus tickets booked much earlier than a wanted, it was time to visit the next ruins of a castle.