Reda Tomingas: A few days among flowers and hills

Me and my friends feel super after spending 5 days in Estonia. We mainly went there to do some mountain skiing and snowboarding. But my main attraction was orchid exhibition in Tartu botanical gardens.

There were more than 120 species on display and 20 of them were presented to the public for the first time!

One of the tiniest orchids there.

Then we got up in the glass house to look at the cacti and succulent collection. It was so hot I had to undress.

Orchids basking in the march sun.

Not orchids, but equally amusing.

The one on the left was one of our favorites.

We crossed the cacti section with less layers of clothes and reached the palm house. It was very high in the ceiling.
Unfortunately there was a bad smell and dust from the renovation of the old staircase.
The botanical garden of Tartu university has more than 200 years on it's back. Not the palm house, of course, but still-impressive...

We made a circle and went back to the orchids. There was a local cat. Sometimes one could spot it's eyes, staring from under some plants. Just like a small tiger! Oh, I wish I could mount my bromeliads on a tree like in the image on the left above!

This huge cattleya orchid got some extra attention from everybody-huge flowers!

More pictures from the garden are here!

We headed to a pub near by. It's one of the high-ceiling pubs in Europe. The portions on our plates almost reached the same heights...

After that we carefully glided (ice everywhere!) to see the ruins of the Gothic Tartu Cathedral.

One of the coolest things we saw was the ski jump in Otepää. We were so lucky to see three guys fly just in front of us as we had an opportunity to stand in the judges tower. We could hear the wind created by the air resistance very clearly when the guys flew by.

Later, on our way back we saw the same guys. We were chocked how young they were! Something between 14 and 16!