A small, modern, medieval town: Tallinn

The first words I find to describe Tallinn are small medieval town. I just loved the medieval town walls and the old town hall, complete with dragon gutter spouts. Of course, this is a modern (albeit little) European capital city, so there's much more than just that.

Old Town Tallinn. Top row: St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox church seated atop Toompea hill; The view down Rataskaevu, home to plenty of fine restaurants that we enjoyed during our stay; A typical street in the Old Town; Tallinn's Viru Gates, which date back to the 14th century and were once part of a larger defensive complex. Middle left row: A typical street (technically outside the Old Town) bearing the Estonian flag; A medieval city gate. Bottom row: Part of the old city walls; Looking down the street toward the 14th century Gothic St. Olav's Church; Tallinn's town hall, reputed to be the best preserved Gothic town hall in Northern Europe; Climbing up to Kiek in de Kök, a 15th century tower.

Tallinn offered surprisingly good food and a great craft beer scene. Mostly, we came across high quality European cuisine, not too much in the way of Estonia-specific beyond some fantastic dark breads. We even found a fantastic Italian gelateria run by real Italians charging at least three times what they could in Italy. (Whoever said that EU didn't do any good?)

Dining in Tallinn. Left column: Estonian dark breads and soups. Middle columns: an assortment of main dishes we enjoyed over the past few days. Right column: desserts!

Enjoying the craft beer scene in Tallinn

Great wifi was available in just about every shop, restaurant, or café. The prices in Tallinn were cheap, though not Vilnius-level cheap, but uou definitely didn't have the feeling that you were among a downtrodden people struggling to find their footing in the 21st century. And you shouldn't. This is a high-tech European country. Did you know that Skype was once a small Estonian start-up? And things haven't stopped there. In late 2014, Estonia became the first country in the world to offer electronic residency, in a step towards "a country without borders," enabling people around the world (who are willing to shell out cash) to obtain access to Estonia's digital services and to gain the rights to open a company or a bank account in Estonia. This is a high-tech little country.

Views across Tallinn, capital of one high-tech little country. (Nicolas does not love the camera, unlike a certain seagull.)

Fun fact: Did you know that Estonia was actually run by the Danes from the 13th-14th century and again in the 16th-17th century? For such a small country today, Denmark certainly has left a large footprint. In fact, traces of it can be found in the Danish king's garden, right on Toompea Hill nearby the castle. Legend has it that today's Danish flag fell from the sky and into existence right here back in 1219, turning the battle for Tallinn in favor of Danish king Valdemar II and winning over the hearts of Danes, who take great pride in their Dannebrog (the Danish flag) today.

The Danish King's Garden, legendary birthplace of the Danish flag, overlooked by an eery sculpture of a faceless monk

It wasn't just the Danes getting in on the business of running Estonia for the Estonians. During much of the 20th century, Estonia was part of the USSR. However, unlike Lithuania, our first former Soviet state to have visited, Estonia is much more integrally tied with Russia. Unlike in Lithuania, where the Russians seemed to be viewed as an external former occupying force, many Estonians actually identify as culturally Russian, even learning to speak Russian before Estonian. Our Airbnb host here in Tallinn told us that she considers herself an exception as an Estonian who is just plain Estonian as far back as she can trace her ancestry. Most of her friends have some Russian/former USSR ancestry. As she explained, that's due much in part to the Soviet Union's efforts to create a "Soviet race" by relocating many young people to different parts of the USSR, where they often ended up meeting people, falling in love, and starting families far away from their roots.

This may help explain why the Estonian Museum of Occupations was much less overwhelming than its Lithuanian counterpart. However, it was home to some impressively discreet KGB spy technology and other interesting tidbits. For instance, we learned about the underground punk music movement of the 1970's, which the Soviets tried hard to suppress. In Estonia, a small magnet required to amplify a guitar could only be found within the public pay phones. It was no coincidence then that, at the height of the '70s punk movement, many repairmen found themselves fixing pay phones, and replacing these magnets, several times a day.

Museum of Occupations. Left: Anti-Nazi Soviet paraphernalia from the early 1940's. Right: a display of an old public payphone, the likes of which had to be repaired 2-3 times a day at the height of the punk music movement, when young Estonians secretly stole phone parts to make their own electric guitars.

In an earlier, less oppressive period of Russian rule, Kadriorg Palace and Park were created, beginning in the early 1700s under the order of the Russian czar Peter the Great. We took a half day to stroll the 2 km outside the city to enjoy the grounds and admire the palace.

Kadriorg Park and Palace

Overall, the city was a charming little place, though we might have done better to plan a day-excursion outside of the city as we had 4 ½ days to fill, more than enough to properly see the city. Instead, we took the opportunity to relax, do a bit of work each morning, and enjoy tourism at a pace to which I'm certainly not accustomed. I'd gladly give Tallinn my thumbs up.

And, with Estonia added to my list of foreign countries visited (#37 and counting!), we boarded our Saint Peter line ferry, Russia-bound.

Farewell, Tallinn!