• Toompea hill with tower Pikk Hermann and Russian Orthodox Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, view from the tower of St. Olaf church, Tallinn, Estonia.

    Do & See

    Tallinn

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Danish King's Garden

Danish King's Garden

This open, garden-like area on the slopes of Toompea Hill happens to be the legendary birthplace of the Danish flag, according to a well-known legend. According to the story, Valdemar's forces were losing their battle with the Estonians when suddenly the skies opened and a red flag with a white cross floated down from the heavens. Taking this as a holy sign, the Danes were spurred on to victory. Today the garden remains a place where locals honor the role Denmark played in Estonia's history. Halfway down the steps towards Rüütli street you can see an iron sword and shield with a Danish cross, and each summer, Dannebrog Day is celebrated here.
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Estonian Maritime Museum — Fat Margaret's Tower

Estonian Maritime Museum — Fat Margaret's Tower

This museum dedicated to all sea-faring aspects of Estonia’s history is housed in one of Tallinn's fattest cannon towers. Fat Margaret Tower (Paks Margareeta) and the attached Great Coastal Gate (Suur Rannavärav), two of Tallinn's most impressive defensive structures, stand guard at the north end of Pikk street. They were built not only to defend the city from the seaward side of town, but also to impress any visitors arriving via the harbour. These days Fat Margaret’s cannon tower is home to the Estonian Maritime Museum, which provides a detailed look at the nation's seafaring past by displaying such things as Neolithic fishing gear, antique diving equipment, and even the entire wheelhouse from a 1950s-era trawler. The extensive museum covers four floors of the historic tower.
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Kalev Marzipan Museum Room

Kalev Marzipan Museum Room

See nearly 200 intricate, marzipan figurines and watch Tallinn's favourite sweet being made in this historic shop-museum-café. In the Kalev Marzipan Museum Room, you'll learn all about Tallinn’s love affair with marzipan. Here you'll find dozens of amazing marzipan creations as well as a marzipan forms belonging to Georg Stude, who founded the shop over a century ago. Children and adults can watch how marzipan figures are hand painted or try their own hand in this craft at a workshop.
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Maiden's Tower

Maiden's Tower

Explore this sturdy, 14th-century tower, sip coffee in its swank café or walk along the Town Wall for some amazing views. Maiden's Tower, one of the most famous of Tallinn's medieval defence towers, was recently renovated and reopened a museum, complete with an exhibition hall in its vaulted cellar. Its famous café, a big hit in the 1980s, has also been restored to its past glory. Meghede torne, as it was originally called, was built in 1370-1373 along with the wall that runs through the Danish King’s Garden.
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Tallinn City Museum

Tallinn City Museum

Housed in a 14th century merchant house, this comprehensive museum provides an excellent introduction to Tallinn’s history. It covers all the vital aspects of the city’s past and its development. Various sectors of medieval society are explained using a combination of texts, artifacts, life-sized models and sound effects. High-quality displays on the upper floors are devoted to 20th-century life, its turbulent wars, Soviet occupation, and finally Estonia’s re-independence.
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Tallinn Town Hall

Tallinn Town Hall

Nothing says power like the impressive Gothic Town Hall that dominates medieval Tallinn's main square. It was built in 1402–04 as a meeting place for the ruling burgomeisters and has been a showpiece of the city ever since. Nowadays the Town Hall — the only intact Gothic town hall in Northern Europe — is used mainly for concerts or for entertaining visiting kings or presidents. From June to August, visitors can climb up the 64-meter tower to get some amazing Old Town views, or head down to the cellars for the occasional exhibition.
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Towers' Square

Towers' Square

In 1931–33, the square was turned into a communal park. Now the square boasts playgrounds for children and fitness areas, and has become known for the Tallinn International Flower Festival, which takes place here every summer. With nearly 2 km of its original city wall still standing, Tallinn boasts one of Europe’s best preserved Medieval fortifications. In fact, a large part of what gives Old Town its fairy tale charm is the system of walls and towers that surrounds it.
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Viru Gate

Viru Gate

This pair of picturesque, ivy-covered towers at the entrance to Viru Street is often the first glimpse visitors get of Old Town. Anyone passing between them couldn't be blamed for thinking they've left the 21st century behind and landed smack in the middle of the 18th. The towers are actually only the foregates of what was a much more complex gate system built in the 14th century. It included a large, square tower that stood farther back along the street, close to where the city wall can be seen.
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Hotel Viru & KGB Museum

Hotel Viru & KGB Museum

Those intrigued by the city's secret history can take the guided tour of the KGB Museum on the 23rd floor of Sokos Hotel Viru. In Soviet times it was rumoured that the KGB had files on everyone and that they operated in the Viru Hotel. The latter rumour turned out to be true, as you will see on this fascinating tour. Not only will you get an inkling of what the operatives were up to, you'll also get some great insights into the history of the hotel, which was designated exclusively for foreign guests visiting the USSR. To continue the 1980s throwback theme, you can pay a visit to the hotel's second floor Currency Bar.
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Bank of Estonia Museum

Bank of Estonia Museum

It's all about the money — and the finance — at the Estonian central bank museum. Here, games, interactive machines and video exhibitions tell the complex story of money, aiming to pique the interest of all visitors, even those who don't know much about finance. Guests will learn the role of money in society, have the arcane mysteries of central bank policy explained and get an overview of how the financial system operates. You will leave with a better grasp of how the euro works as well as how the central bank manages its external assets, payment methods and payment environment. The museum has a shop and a currency exchange point — the only place where Estonian kroon can still be converted into euros.
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St Charles's Church

St Charles's Church

Tallinn's grandest 19th-century church sets itself apart with its twin steeples, immense size and neo-Roman style. It was built from 1862 to 1882 as a long overdue replacement for the original Kaarli Church, itself founded in 1670 on the order of Sweden's King Charles XI. Like many wooden structures located outside the city wall, the first Kaarli Church burned down during the Great Northern War in the early 1700s. Architect Otto Pius Hippius from St Petersburg built the present limestone church using a special arch technique that gave it a vast, open interior. The Kaarli Church is home to the first Estonian fresco, “Come to Me”, painted in 1879 by famed Tallinn artist Johann Köler. It also boasts the country's largest church organ, installed in 1924. With its wonderful acoustics and seating capacity of 1,500, the church is often used as a venue for concerts.
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St John's Church

St John's Church

The bright yellow, neo-Gothic Lutheran church that dominates the Freedom Square is a true survivor among the city's churches. Despite two attempts to tear it down in the last century, it has persevered and is likely to be around for a long time to come. The idea for St John's church first came about in the mid-19th century when the city's growing population of ethnic Estonians made the Holy Spirit Church too small for its congregation. A new church, which at the pastor's suggestion was named for St John the Evangelist, was founded. Construction lasted from 1862 to 1867, and was carried out under the supervision of the church's designer, Tallinn-born architect Christoph August Gabler. Building on this spot was no easy task. The area here outside the old city wall had earlier been the site of the town moat, so the land was too soft to hold up the structure's foundation. The solution was to ram dozens of thick oak trunks into the ground for extra support. By the 1930s, a new crop of art deco and functionalist buildings had appeared around Freedom Square, leaving the church's neo-Gothic appearance dramatically out of step with its surroundings. However, the city's plans to pull down the church and reconstruct the square were never realised due to the war and subsequent occupation of Estonia. Likewise, avant-guard architects had similar ideas in the 1950s, but fortunately, these were never followed through.
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Energy Discovery Centre

Energy Discovery Centre

With over 130 interactive, hands-on exhibits, this museum is a mad scientist's dream come true. The family-oriented centre, housed in a unique industrial heritage site, focuses mainly on natural, technical and physical sciences. The main hall with its "island of lightning" is devoted to everything related to electricity, while the planetarium with its 10-metre dome introduces astronomy and space projects created by Estonia's own scientists. Another exhibition allows visitors to see and feel the sounds. With over 3,000 square metres of space, the centre has seven permanent exhibitions in fields such as energy, classical physics, sound and optics, as well as temporary exhibitions. It also has a birthday room, a teachers’ room, a physics classroom and a seminar area.
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Telliskivi Creative City

Telliskivi Creative City

Telliskivi Creative City is a new, artist-friendly complex that has become a popular hangout for shoppers and restaurant-goers. Located in a reclaimed factory area not far from the Old Town, it is Estonia's biggest creative economic enterprise centre, bringing together a diverse range of activities and businesses. For example, there is a 160-seat eatery, a childcare centre, a printing shop, a furniture shop, a theatre and an antique book store. Dance evenings are held on Tuesday evenings, Saturdays bring a flea market. More than anything, the hub is a bohemian place for relaxation and business that encourages people with similar interests to get together.
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Kultuurikatel — Tallinn Creative Hub

Kultuurikatel — Tallinn Creative Hub

The "Cauldron of Culture" Is a creative hub and an art space in the very centre of Tallinn. Here, life is in full swing, with a variety of creative workshops, seminars, conferences, festivals, concerts, exhibitions and much more. From 1913 to 1979, the thoroughly restored building housed the Tallinn Central City Power Plant. It was the first major step in the electrification of Tallinn. The former boiler room gave the cultural centre its name. The first serious contact between the former power plant and art occurred in 1977, when Andrei Tarkovsky filmed his cult film "Stalker" in this complex.
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Pirita Convent Ruins

Pirita Convent Ruins

For a unique, historic experience, explore the eerily beautiful ruins of St Bridget's, a medieval convent destroyed in 1577. Founded in 1407 as part of a Swedish religious order, St Bridget's was the largest convent in the Livonian territories and operated until the Livonian War, when it was decimated by the forces of Ivan the Terrible. The most striking feature that remains is a mysterious, 35-metre gabled facade towering above the trees next to Pirita River. In addition to its facade, visitors to the ruins can see several walls, staircases and cellars, as well as a farmer's cemetery that developed here in the 17th century. The walls of the main structure are still standing, making it an excellent venue for outdoor performances. The spot is often used for concerts, most notably those of the Birgitta Festival, which happens here each August. Nearby is the modern building of the St Bridgettine Order, who re-established a convent here in 2001.
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Tallinn Botanic Garden

Tallinn Botanic Garden

The Tallinn Botanic Garden's extensive, lush greenhouses — where you can find everything from banana plants to decorative house plants — are open to visitors all year round. The garden frequently hosts special exhibits of beautiful, sensual, flagrant and exotic flowers. There are also displays following a different theme each month such as medicinal and poisonous plants, exotic fruits, taste and smell, mushrooms, cutting flowers and more. In summer, the garden makes a perfect, family-friendly spot for picnics and the occasional outdoor concert, and a stroll through the rose garden is always a must. Thematic tours are also conducted throughout the year, the most popular among them being the summer-night aroma tours and the rose days.
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Pirita Beach

Pirita Beach

Pirita beach is by far the largest and most popular in Tallinn. In the summer it can attract up to 30,000 visitors a day. The 2-km-long beach has a magnificent view of the Old Town and the busy sea traffic on the Gulf of Finland. Here you'll find ball courts, playgrounds for children, lockers, chaise lounges and water sport equipment rental. The beach has been awarded The Blue Flag eco-label, which means that in addition to clean water and necessary communications, the beach also provides environmentally friendly and educational activities.
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