Tallinn, Estonia

We docked at about 9:00 and were off the ship shortly after.  The ship docked so close to the Old Town that it only took maybe 10 minutes to walk to it and to the Fat Margaret Tower which is home to the Estonian Maritime Museum but was previously a heavy guarded gate tower. 

Old Town Tallinn with the short round Fat Margaret Tower in the center

We walked through the great coastal gate which was the most important gate through the defensive wall in the Middle Ages.  Its also the beginning to Pikk Street which was the medieval merchants street and is now filled with neato buildings, shops restaurants, and other points of interest.  It's also right along the amazing medieval town wall that surrounds most of old Tallinn.

Just like Rothenburg o.b. Tauber!

We walked by St. Olav's Church that dates back to 1267 and was once the tallest spire in Scandinavia at 520 feet.  We climbed up the steep Pikk Jalg to Toompea Hill in the center of the Old Town that houses two churches, a castle but doesn't really look like a castle because it's the government buildings today, as well as some very pricey real estate.  Dave was happy to learn that when the Danish settled here around 1219 they started to build a fortress on top of Toompea - they called it Danneburg and today it's referred to Domberg.  The name "Tallinn" means "City of the Danes". No wonder DH liked it so much :)
 

Tall Hermann Tower and Domberg Castle

We popped into the Cathedral of Saint Mary the Virgin (Toomkirik) for a quick look around.  It is very old, musty smelling, dark and dreary, not pretty at all and completely unlike all churches we have been in thus far!  The walls were adorned with family crests and medieval coats of arms throughout centuries representing rich merchant families and that was really interesting.  The smaller the coat of arms, the older the family and they were all locally hand carved.  The floor was paved with tombstones.

Cathedral of St. Mary (Toomkirik)

The other church on Toompea is the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, much more beautiful.  It was built between 1894 and 1900, during the period when the country was part of the Russian Empire. The Cathedral is Tallinn's largest and grandest orthodox cupola cathedral.  We didn't go inside due to the large crowds of people all around but snapped a few pics on the outside.

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

We walked back down into the Old Town along the medieval town wall to find a place for lunch that had wifi. We lucked out, right in the Raekoja Plats or City Hall Square where they had a merchant market going on.  We enjoyed some of the local brews with lunch, utilized the free wifi and enjoyed the beautiful day. 

Raekoja Plats or City Hall Square

We tried to got into the towns oldest Apothecary from 1422 but the door was just closing.  It is still functioning today and looked very antique inside.  We had really seen most sights of the town so we leisurely made our way back to the ship.  Tallinn was a great medieval city much like those that we've visited in Germany. 

We rejoined our table mates that night in the dining room for dinner and then went to the theatre for a show called Isha which was more of the international dancers as well as the singers and some of the other acts.  It was an early morning the next day as we got into Saint Petersburg at 7 am and the clocks were advancing another hour so after putzing around the decks snapping sunset pictures we had to get some rest.  It's hard to go to sleep at night when 11:30pm looks like 4:30pm!

 
LINK to Tallinn Pictures