Our plan for this three week trip is to fly first to Tallinn, spend a week exploring the Baltic Countries, then fly to Hungary where we will get picked up by family and driven to Romania where we will spend the rest of our vacation. There are a lot of moving parts and the first one fails on our departure day.
We are supposed to fly to Germany and then from there to Tallinn but the flight to Tallinn is cancelled due to a Lufthansa strike. There is a lot of confusion and no airline can help us either rebook or even find something remotely workable. We hope we can fly at least to Frankfurt and then find something from there but miracle of miracles when we arrive at the airport counter we are actually rebooked on the best possible route we also found so now the hope is we can make all connections and if we can we will actually make it to Tallinn at the same time we were supposed to initially.
We make all connections in time even in Helsinki, our unplanned stopover, where we have only 50 minutes between the planes. It is very important for us to make it as we are meeting family in Tallinn with whom we are planning to visit the Baltic Countries.
We arrive after midnight in Tallinn but a few minutes earlier than we were supposed to on our original flight and then wait for the rest of our party to arrive from Romania before taking a Bolt (Baltic countries Uber type ride-sharing company) to our Airbnb. The accomodation is inside city walls on a pedestrian street so we have to carry the luggage for about 5 minutes and then we are finally able to open to door after some fumbling.
The accomodation is split across three levels with the first one having just a toilet, the second one having the living room and the kitchen and the third having the bedrooms and the major bathroom. What this means is that we have to carry the luggage across two flights of stairs after flying the whole day but we manage it and soon we are asleep (it is 2AM in Tallinn when we go to sleep).
In the morning what we need most is coffee given that we have slept little and we have a full day of Tallinn exploration in front of us. Luckily the AirBnB provides, and then it is time to start foraging for breakfast outside.
The accomodation is located in a closed off courtyard and entering it was where we struggled the previous night with the code not working, a key hidden under a stone also not working before noticing that it is actually open….yes we were really tired.
One of the things we really like about our location is that we have a part of the old wall visible from the window. It is quite scenic and there are even birds from time to time resting on the wall.
Right in front of our Airbnb is the city wall, it is quite a scenic sight and we really enjoy that we have to walk along it every time we exit the building, we feel like we are in a medieval city.
Close to us is the Viru Gate, where we entered the night prior into the city, and today we use it to exit outside to find a breakfast place. But first we explore a bit what is for sale right outside the gate, mostly beautiful flowers.
One of the things we notice in our short exploration is that the city is full of sculptures of stone pigeons that block car access in different areas, fun way to do that. There are also other statues in fun postures on benches and other places that always surprise us especially if we don’t notice immediately that they are sculptures.
We find that one of the few places open in the morning for breakfast is Hesburger, the Nordic fast food chain. We buy using the automated stations which are fun as they allow us to customize the order and then the only thing left is to eat the food as soon as possible as we have a city to explore.
After our Hesburger stop we return via the Viru Gate and start towards the Town Hall square. We also explore the interesting side streets as we slowly make our way to the Central Square.
There are many stores along the way and we enter a few of them and even buy some stuff. But not baltic amber even though it is beautiful and “sourced locally” as it is way too expensive.
We spend some time on the pedestrian street going towards the Town Hall Square and besides the many stores we also explore restaurants along the way to choose one for dinner for later.
As we get closer to the Town Hall Square the houses become more impresive, they are reminescent of other Hansa cities we have been in. This makes sense of course as Tallinn was the northernmost Hansa city and therefore quite an important Hanseatic city. And then we are in the Town Hall Square, described separately, that we explore for a while before going in search of the Marzipan Museum.
There are many interesting side streets in the Old Town and we explore them as much as we can as we slowly make our way towards what we expect is the Marzipan museum.
We find the building and right next to it is the Russian Embassy which to put it mildly is not highly regarded in Tallinn. It is surrounded by a protective fence covered by posters about the war in Ukraine and atrocities committed by the Russians during the invasion.
The museum that we find is not really a museum more like a marzipan store. Still it is fun to look at the many different sortiments and forms marzipan can be turned into, we especially like the animal ones and even buy some to taste later.
There are other interesting buildings all around us with the Dragon Gallery House being one of the most interesting ones. The facade is quite beautiful and we spend some time admiring it before continuing on. Now it is time to go up Toompea Hill towards the administrative center of the city and country described here. While on the hill we also visit Kiek in de Kök museum described separately that leads us back down in the Old Town.
Exiting the museum we notice again that the city is full of Ukraine flags and signs of support, which makes lots of sense, here you actually notice that there is a war nearby which is not so true outside of the Baltic countries.
One of our party really wants to visit Niculiste church and as we are nearby we make a short detour to understand if that is possible and if not when it would be open. The answer is not what we hoped for, it is actually closed for renovations for the year. So no visit this time…..
We now continue skirting the hill looking at the many medieval houses along the way, they are quite well restored and some have some fun decorations include the house we called the “Hell Hunt” house, which is actually a restaurant serving the Hell Hunt ale.
Soon, even though it doesn’t feel that way to our tired legs, we arrive at our next destination and last church for the day, St Olaf’s Church. It is one of the few churches here that is free to enter and you can take photos inside. It is now a Lutheran Church but is much older dating from the 13th century and it claimed to be the tallest building in the world in the 16th century.
It is still very tall but quite austere now, likely both due to the Lutheran denomination and the fact that the Soviets used it at as radio tower and surveillance point.
From here we exit outside the city walls for a short period so we can see the walls also from a different vantage point. We are trying to find a shortcut to a different tower but the trails here are sometimes closed so in fact the “shortcut” takes longer than it would have been to try to reach the gate from inside the city walls.
Finally we arrive at our desired gate, Fat Margaret Tower. which is the largest and more impressive as it was the seaside gate. It now houses the Maritime Museum which is closed this late in the day.
We now start returning toward the restaurant we have chosen through an area of the downtown we haven’t been before. There are some nice buildings along the way some seemingly held together by metal clamps.
Funnily enough as we pass a store we notice a sign that says marzipan museum and we enter it, it is actually more extensive than the one we have seen earlier in the day and has more exhibits made out of marzipan.
Exiting the museum we continue along side streets seeing beautiful well maintained houses everywhere. We are advancing quite slowly because of that as we take many photos along the way.
Side streets are also more empty at this time of the day making exploring Tallinn a bit like exploring an abandoned medieval town, quite cool.
The restaurant is in the cellar so our tired legs have to take us down a few more steps before we can enjoy the good food and relax at the table. And the food is quite good and worth the whole day wait. Quite full we are now ready to return to our lodging which is quite close by.
For that we choose to return via Katariina Lane which is probably the most scenic lane in Tallinn. In fact is it so narrow that our maps don’t even show it to be continuous and reaching the street our Airbnb is on.
We wander a bit more to walk off the food but then we return to the AirBnB to recuperate given that we slept only about 5 hours after a one day flight and then walked about 10 miles in a day with lots of stairs and up and downs.
It is a bit of a pity that we hadonly one day in Tallinn as there are a few sites that we would have liked to visit in more depth. But it is what it is and we spend the morning before we leave exploring a bit more the streets around us which are actually eerily quiet and empty compared to most of the day prior.
We start the morning with a short exploration of Tallinn before we have to pick up our rental car at the airport. The first point of interest is Cat’s Well, one of the major wells in Tallinn in medieval times. It has also a dark history at least according to legend. The assumption was that an evil water spirit lived in the well and threatened to make all the town’s wells run dry if it wasn’t given regular animal sacrifices. To keep it happy some cattle and sheep carcasses were thrown down the well, but mostly stray cats, which is where the name is coming from.
Another interesting sight in the same square is a house with the top left window being bricked in and curtains being painted from the outside. Supposedly the Devil’s wedding happened in that room and the owner couldn’t resist peeking and died the next day.
We now return back to the accomodation via the Town Hall Square passing the Pharmacy Museum and a few interesting courtyards, Tallinn is quite a different place with fewer people out in the streets.
We enjoy this last walk through Tallinn and then it is time to take all our luggage and get a Bolt to reach the airport. Car rental takes a bit but we are the first in line so we are soon in the parking lot searching for the car. We check the car taking photos of all dings and scratches and then we are on our way to Maarjamäe Castle our first stop for today described here.
