Tallinn Travel Guide

Tallinn is the capital of Estonia and since the collapse of the Soviet Union the city has rapidly developed from a small town in a big empire to the biggest town of a small country.

The Old Town is a compact maze of cobblestone streets, historical buildings and great views and has a place on UNESCO's World Heritage List. Many of the old buildings have been renovated, but generally speaking in quite a good way. The Old Town is easy to cover on foot. Start near the Townhouse square (Raekoja Plats), head your way up to the Pikk Jalg, to the Castle Square. On Castle Hill you find Toompea Castle and the 19th-century symbol of the Tsar's power in Estonia, the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. To fully get a grip on medieval Tallinn, you might consider walking around the walls and fortifications. The city used to have 66 towers (!) of which 19 remain. Some are restaurants or shops, others are offices. The three oldest towers, Nunna, Sauna and Kuldjala, can be visited in summer.

Tallinn is full of museums, covering a range of fields from history and nature to art and architecture. For art lovers, museums show a range of established artists, but the city's art scene is also alive with constantly changing exhibits in galleries and halls. Paintings, sculpture, graphic art and applied art by lesser-known names and new talent from Estonia and abroad are shown in many venues throughout the city, giving a better taste of what's happening now.

With Tallinn being a port city on the water, many ferries from other Baltic countries and cruise ships regularly dock here. Therefore it is fairly easy to spend a day in Tallinn to see the sights. The Old Town, both Upper and Lower Town are well preserved and/or restored and worth the visit. Most tours include a stop at the Sound Festival Ground where every five years a music festival is held. Also a little know fact is that the Sailing competitions for the 1980 Moscow Olympics were held in Tallinn at the Pirita yachting complex (which were built by the Russians for the Olympics).