Tallinn travel guide: A Medieval Old Town at the Edge of the Baltic

Toompea hill, seen from the tower of St Olaf’s church. (Photo: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Tallinn, Estonia's capital and largest city, is a busy Baltic port whose passenger harbour runs right up to the foot of a medieval Old Town so well preserved that it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997. Around it stands a modern city of glass towers — and, between the two, Soviet concrete blocks and colourful 1920s wooden houses. Estonia sees itself as Northern European, with close ties to Finland, and most visitors are day-trippers from Helsinki, across the bay.

A city many powers wanted

Soviet-era migration left its mark: just over 40 percent of Tallinn's people today are Slavic, against 28 percent for the country as a whole.

The Old Town

The Old Town has two levels. Up on Toompea hill sit Toompea Castle, now the Estonian Parliament, with its Tall Hermann tower; the onion-domed Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, built in 1894–1900 when Estonia belonged to the Russian Empire; and St Mary's Cathedral, first built in 1229 and Tallinn's oldest church. Down in the Lower Town, where the merchants and craftsmen lived, you enter through the Viru Gate to Town Hall Square, a former marketplace ringed with cafés. Its Town Hall, from the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries, is the oldest in the Nordic and Baltic countries.

Nearby: St Olaf's, founded in the 12th century and the Old Town's most visible landmark; St Nicholas, rebuilt after war damage and a 1980s fire and now an art museum; the History Museum in the medieval Great Guild; the Maritime Museum in the Fat Margaret tower; the former KGB cells on Pikk Street; Vabamu, the Museum of Occupations and Freedom; and walkable stretches of the city wall.

The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. (Photo: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Town Hall, oldest in the Nordic and Baltic countries. (Photo: Ivar Leidus, CC BY-SA 3.0 ee)

The Viru Gate into the Lower Town. (Photo: maigi, CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Old Town walls. (Photo: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Beyond the walls

• Kadriorg: the palace Peter the Great had built in 1718 by the Italian architect Niccolo Michetti, in a 90-hectare park, and KUMU, the national art museum opened in 2006.
• The Song Festival Grounds, a huge modernist stage where the All Estonian Song Festival, held every five years, brings together 34,000 singers and dancers.
• Kalamaja, the oldest suburb, dating back to the 14th century, of wooden houses built for workers — its name means "fish house".
• The Seaplane Harbour, a maritime museum in old seaplane hangars, and the grim Patarei fortress, built by Tsar Nicholas I in 1820 and later a notorious prison, which closed only in 2004.
• The TV Tower in Pirita: 314 metres tall, with an observation deck at 170 metres, the highest in Northern Europe.
• Rottermann Quarter, 19th- and 20th-century industrial buildings turned into apartments and shops; and Linnahall, a monument of Soviet brutalism by the sea.

A wooden house in Kalamaja. (Photo: Jarmo kauge, CC BY-SA 3.0 ee)

Inside the Seaplane Harbour. (Photo: Irve, CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Song and Dance Celebration of 2009. (Photo: ToBreatheAsOne, CC BY-SA 2.0)

When to go and how to get there

Winters are dark and cold — below −20 °C is not unheard of from December to February — and snow usually lingers until late March. Summer is the best time, with days of 20–30 °C in July and August and nights that never get truly dark; autumn is the rainy season. During the Medieval Days, guided tours fill the Old Town.

From Helsinki, more than 20 ferries a day cross to Tallinn's port, taking between 1½ and 3½ hours; all carry cars and bicycles, and day cruises are popular. Tallinn also has an airport, a main railway station, Balti Jaam, and a bus station.

Cruise ships in Tallinn harbour. (Photo: n3zwork, CC BY 2.0)

A guided tour during the Medieval Days. (Photo: JIP, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources

• "Tallinn" from Wikivoyage, by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changed: rewritten in hubnx's own words and condensed; listings, addresses, prices, opening hours and phone numbers left out; each photo under its own licence, credited in its caption. This page is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.