Tallin - a modern city with a Medieval touch

Our first stop on our Baltic Cruise was Tallin, Estonia... "a modern city with a medieval touch."

Tallin is the oldest capital city in Northern Europe and was once a part of the USSR.  The medieval old town is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.  It is also the birthplace of Skype!

We walked about 15 minutes to just outside of the Old Town and then grabbed a taxi.

Our brilliant idea was to start at the highest point of the town and then spend the day walking back towards the port.

The benefit would be that we were walking downhill rather than uphill all day and

that we would get out of the mainstream group of tourists that we had "outsmarted".

Wrong.  We arrived at Alexander Nevsky Cathedral at the same time as about 6 tour buses.

There goes that brilliant idea.  After fighting our way through the initial crowds and dealing with some morning showers, the day quickly improved as we explored the medieval streets of Tallin's Old Town.

Tallin was once called Reval and Estonia was a dominion of Sweden.  In the 1700's, it became a Provence of Imperial Russia until 1920 when it gained independence.  Twenty years later with the beginning of WWII, Estonia was annexed by the Soviet Union, then occupied by Nazi Germany from 1941-44 and heavily bombed by both the Germans and the Soviets.  It remained a part of the USSR until 1991.  Estonia is now a part of the European Union and a modern European Capital.

The old town square of Tallin is one of Matthew's favorite European squares.  The town hall is the only Gothic style town hall still standing and is over 600 years old.  In the shadow of the town hall, we sat down for a quick lunch.  Of course, I had to try some Estonian Honey Beer.  (Yea, it's sweet.)

We stopped to watch some Morris Dancing in the town square.  I'm not sure why there was English folk dancing in Tallin but they were having a great time.

And of course we had to stop at the Texas Honky Tonk & Cantina for a Lone Star beer.

For just a few moments I felt like I was home.

I'll be honest and say that 10,000 cruisers descending on this small medieval old town is a bit much.  As we made our way back to the port, I was wishing we could stay into the evening after the cruise ships had sailed away.  Tallin is definitely someplace I would love to spend a long weekend during the off season or maybe even for the Christmas Markets.

I hope we can make it back someday.

Have you visited Tallin?  What did you think?

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