5 Days in Tallinn

The easiest way into the Old Town is through the two round towers that survive from the Viru Gate, once the main entrance to the medieval city. Behind them the pedestrian Viru Street runs toward Town Hall Square, lined with souvenir shops, knitwear and cafes. It's the most touristy street in the city and it works exactly as intended, so walk it once with your eyes up.

Pickpockets work Viru Street and the trams, so zip your phone and wallet away. Right behind the gate is the Rotermann Quarter, a former factory district rebuilt in the 2000s with restaurants and design shops. A short look is enough today.

Turn off Vene Street into Katariina käik, a narrow vaulted lane that runs along the old Dominican monastery. Dominican monks founded St Catherine's here in 1246, and the Reformation ended the monastery's life in the 1520s. The ancient tombstones that once lay in the church are still set into the walls, and the lane is lined with workshops where glass, ceramics, hats and silk are made by hand.

Peek into the open studios and you'll often see someone actually working, which is the difference between this and a souvenir arcade. Each studio sets its own hours, so afternoon is the safest time to go in.

Five minutes along Vene Street is Raekoja plats, the market square at the heart of the town since the Middle Ages. The Gothic Town Hall on the south side is the oldest in the Baltic Sea region and Scandinavia, and its 64-meter spire is topped by a weather vane called Old Thomas, a figure that has stood up there since 1530 and become a city symbol. Across the square, the Raeapteek, the Town Hall Pharmacy, has been in the same house since the early 1400s and is one of the oldest continuously running pharmacies in Europe. It still sells medicine.

The Town Hall's interior and tower are open only in summer, so in October admire it from outside. The square is best with a coffee, watching it fill with tour groups and pigeons.

Maiasmokk means sweet tooth, and the cafe counts its history from 1864 and is probably the oldest continuously running one in Estonia. It sits at Pikk 16, a few minutes from the square, and it's the place to try the cakes, buns and coffee that Estonians actually eat. Skip the tourist menus around Town Hall Square for lunch and have a pirukas (a baked pie) and a coffee here instead.

A side room is a small marzipan museum with about 200 figures, and you can paint one yourself. If you only do one sweet stop in Estonia, make it this one.

St Nicholas' Church, Niguliste, was built in the 13th century and partly destroyed in the Soviet bombing of March 1944. It never got its congregation back, and today it's a branch of the Art Museum of Estonia and a concert hall. That sounds dry, but the collection is the best medieval art in the country. In a side chapel hangs the Danse Macabre, a fragment from the workshop of Bernt Notke, where Death leads a pope, an emperor, a merchant and a child by the hand. Nobody is spared.

The high altar by Hermen Rode's workshop (1478-1481) and the medieval sculptures are worth half an hour by themselves. Organ concerts run on Saturday and Sunday afternoons at 4pm, and they're half an hour, which is exactly the right length.

Oleviste is the tallest church in Estonia at 123.7 meters, and until the end of October you can climb its tower. A spiral staircase leads to a platform at 60 meters, with the best view of the red roofs of the Old Town and the sea behind them. The first written mention of the church is from 1267. A legend says the builder was a giant called Olev who fell from the tower when the townspeople guessed his name, and a toad and a snake crawled from his mouth.

You'll hear that in the Middle Ages this was the tallest building in the world. That's most likely a myth: it comes from a medieval craftsman's claim of 84 fathoms, and in local fathoms the tower was probably 115-125 meters in 1590, tall but not a record. From 1944 to 1991 the Soviet KGB used the spire as a radio tower and surveillance point, which tells you what the view is worth. Go up around 4:30pm for the late light and you'll be down before the doors close.

Vanaema Juures means at grandmother's, and it is a cellar of antiques and old photographs on Rataskaevu street where the cooking is Estonian, in generous portions. The menu changes, so ask what the kitchen is proudest of that day. Look for pork, Baltic herring or game with black bread, and a kama dessert if they have one.

Book ahead. If it's full, Rataskaevu 16 is a few doors away and cooks in a more modern style (see day two). Afterward walk back past Town Hall Square when the crowds have gone, and the cobbles are yours.

The black-and-gold onion domes of Alexander Nevsky Cathedral rise right across from the parliament, and you'll see them from half the city. It was built in 1894-1900 to a design by Mikhail Preobrazhensky, in the Russian Revival style, at a time when the Russian Empire was pushing Russian language and church on its Baltic provinces. Many Estonians disliked it as a symbol of Russian rule from the start. It has eleven bells cast in Saint Petersburg, and the largest weighs about 16 tons, more than the other ten combined.

Its fate has been argued about for a century. A demolition planned for 1 May 1929 was cancelled, and after 2022 some MPs proposed pulling it down again. For now it's an active church and open to visitors, usually for free. Go in, stay quiet, and check the signs about photography.

The pink Baroque facade facing the square hides Toompea Castle, a medieval fortress, and a modern parliament in its courtyard. The Danes started the fortress in the early 13th century, the Teutonic Order added the towers, and Swedish and Russian governors ruled from here. The tallest tower, Pikk Hermann (Tall Hermann), is 48 meters high, and the Estonian flag is raised on it at sunrise every day to the national anthem, and lowered at sunset.

After independence in 1918, the government built the Riigikogu, the parliament, inside the courtyard, designed by Eugen Habermann and Herbert Johanson and finished in 1922. Its exterior is traditional, its interior Expressionist, which makes it the world's only Expressionist parliament building. You can't wander in, so ask the parliament's visitor service about tours.

St Mary's Cathedral, the Dome Church, is the oldest church in Tallinn and in mainland Estonia, founded in the 13th century, and the only building on Toompea to survive the great fire of 1684, though badly damaged. After the fire the church was rebuilt from 1686.

Inside, forget the altar and look at the walls: they are covered in painted coats of arms and tombstones of the Baltic German nobility, tombstones from the 13th to the 18th century and coats of arms from the 17th to the 20th. It's a history of who ran Estonia before the Estonians did. The bell tower can be climbed for a fee, but the church's site says it is open only when possible, so don't count on it.

Walk five minutes north from the Dome Church to Kohtuotsa, the platform you've seen on every postcard of the city: red roofs, the spires of St Olaf and Niguliste, the Baltic and the sea of tourists. It gets crowded around lunchtime, so go straight after the church.

A little further on is Patkuli, a quieter platform on the cliff edge looking over the northern end of the Old Town, the harbor and the roofs of Kalamaja, which is the part of town you'll visit on day three. It shows how Tallinn worked: nobles up here, merchants down there, and a wall between them.

The name of this artillery tower is Low German for peek into the kitchen, because from the top soldiers could look down into the kitchens of the houses below. It was built in 1475, stands 38 meters high with walls 4 meters thick, and cannon balls from the siege of 1577 are still stuck in its outer wall. Inside is a museum about the town's fortifications.

The real draw is underneath. The bastion passages are a maze of Swedish defense tunnels from the late 1600s dug into the hill, later used as air-raid shelters and, in the Soviet years, a fallout shelter. You walk through them on your own, and the cold is the point. Most visitors miss it.

Vabamu is where Estonia tells the story of 1940-1991: first the Soviet occupation, then the Nazi German one from 1941 to 1944, then Soviet again. It's not a gentle museum. Documents, photographs and everyday objects show what happened to ordinary people, and it ends with the Singing Revolution of 1988-91 that undid all of it.

Give it at least an hour and a half. It explains things you'll see for the rest of the week, from the concrete buildings to why the Song Festival Grounds matter so much. A separate branch in the old KGB cells at Pagari 1 exists, but one of the two is enough for most people.

Walk back down into the Lower Town for Rataskaevu 16, a restaurant that cooks Estonian ingredients in a modern way, with smoked eel, salmon and braised elk on the menu. Its beer list leans on Põhjala, the Tallinn craft brewer.

Try the braised elk if it's on that day, with a Põhjala beer such as the Rukkirääk rye ale. If the night is dry, walk to Freedom Square afterwards, where a Victory Column from 2009 commemorates the War of Independence.

The Baltic Station Market sits next to the railway station: a covered market with meat, dairy and seafood halls, a street food area and second-hand stalls. It's the place to learn the national snacks: rye bread, smoked fish and curd snacks called kohuke.

Come hungry and buy small things: a slice of rye bread with butter, a piece of cheese, a kohuke. Hours vary by stall and everything closes earlier on Sundays, so go before midday.

Kalamaja means fish house, and for most of Tallinn's history it was the fishermen's district just outside the walls. Everything changed in 1870, when the railway to Saint Petersburg arrived and factories followed, and thousands of workers needed somewhere to live. The wooden apartment houses built for them from the late 19th century came through the Soviet era largely intact. Today it's one of the best-preserved wooden districts in the country, and one of the nicest areas in Tallinn to wander.

Walk Vana-Kalamaja and the side streets toward the sea. Locals live here, so keep to the pavement.

Telliskivi is a former factory complex of the Baltic Railway Company that artists and entrepreneurs started to occupy in 2007. It now has about 300 companies, with shops, galleries, theaters and a dozen restaurants, and the feel of a place that has been rebuilt for people who work with their hands or their laptops. If you want to see the new Tallinn, this is it. Fotografiska Tallinn, a photography museum at Telliskivi 60a, is also here.

Eat at F-hoone, an industrial-looking restaurant in the middle of the complex, with a menu of mixed Estonian and international food that's known for its salmon and coconut soup.

The Seaplane Harbour opened as a museum in 2012 in a hangar built to hold seaplanes as part of Peter the Great's Naval Fortress. Inside you'll find the 1936 submarine Lembit, a full-size replica of a First World War Short seaplane and a yellow submarine in which you can play captain. It's the best museum in Tallinn for people who don't like museums.

Outside, the icebreaker Suur Tõll is moored in the harbor, and its ticket may be separate, so ask at the desk. The nearby Fat Margaret, a 16th-century gun tower with walls up to five meters thick at the end of Pikk Street, belongs to the same maritime museum.

Ten minutes along the shore from the Seaplane Harbour is Patarei, a sea fortress built in 1830-1837 for Tsar Nicholas I. It later became barracks and, from 1919, a prison, and the Soviet remand prison there held people until 1991. For years it opened in summer as a raw, unrestored exhibition. Now the exhibition area is closed for renovation, and the official Patarei site says it reopens in 2027 as part of a museum for the victims of communism.

A little further east is the Linnahall, a Soviet concert hall and sports arena built for the 1980 Moscow Olympics, when Tallinn hosted the sailing events. It's a vast terraced concrete shape beside the harbor that has been semi-abandoned for years. Walk its terraces for the view over the sea and the Old Town at sunset, which is the reason to be here, and stay out of any fenced-off areas.

The Estonian way to end a day is a sauna, and Kalma Saun at Vana-Kalamaja 9a is the oldest you can still visit. It was built in 1928 and keeps a dignified lobby, a wood-fired stove in the men's sauna, a plunge pool and a steam room. The women's sauna is heated by an electric stove. Men and women use separate saunas and there's a small kiosk selling drinks and snacks.

A public sauna is a quiet place, not a party: you sweat, cool off and sweat again. Bring a towel; the kiosk sells sauna supplies. If you prefer a bar with a sauna, the Põhjala Tap Room in Noblessner has one you can book.

In 1718 Peter the Great, who had taken Tallinn from the Swedes a few years earlier, ordered a summer residence and park built on the hill outside the city. The palace he commissioned, Kadriorg Palace, named Kadriorg, Catherine's valley, after his wife, was built in 1718-1725 to a design by Nicola Michetti and finished by Gaetano Chiaveri and Mikhail Zemtsov. It's a pink and white Baroque palace, and today it houses the Kadriorg Art Museum, which shows foreign art from the 16th to 20th centuries.

Honestly, the park is the bigger draw. The gardens, ponds and avenues are free, so go inside only if you like Baroque interiors and foreign art.

Kumu is a ten-minute walk through the park from the palace, and it's the main building of the Art Museum of Estonia. It shows Estonian art from the 18th century to today, including the Soviet period. Don't expect names you know; the pleasure is in seeing how a small country pictured itself.

If you went to Vabamu on day two, the Soviet-era rooms put faces and pictures to that story. Allow at least an hour, and go straight to the permanent collection.

For lunch stay in the palace. The museum runs a cafe in the Baroque building, with high ceilings and big windows over the park. Expect something simple, soup, a pie or cake, rather than a big meal.

If you want more, the Old Town is a short tram ride away, but the point is to stay in the park in daylight.

The Lauluväljak, the Song Festival Grounds, is a vast open-air bowl with a curved stage, built for choirs. The song festival, Laulupidu, has been held since 1869 and every five years since, and it's recognized by UNESCO as a masterpiece of intangible heritage. In the Soviet years it was one of the few places where people could sing national songs in public.

That is why this is the place of the Singing Revolution. On 10-11 June 1988, after an Old Town festival, people moved to the grounds and sang patriotic songs together, and the Song of Estonia festival followed here that September. In 1989 two million people formed the Baltic Way, a human chain from Tallinn to Vilnius. Stand at the bottom of the bowl and look up, and the scale becomes obvious.

Keep going east along the shore to Pirita, where the ruins of the Brigittine convent stand beside a quiet river. Monks arrived from Sweden in 1407, the church was consecrated in 1436, and the convent worked until the Livonian War, when Russian troops under Ivan the Terrible attacked it in 1577 and left the ruins you see today.

The big gable wall and empty windows look best against a grey sky. Pirita beach and its promenade are nearby.

The Tallinn TV Tower was built for the 1980 Olympic sailing regatta and opened on 11 July 1980. It is 313 meters high, and the observation deck at 170 meters reopened in 2012 after a long renovation. Now it's the best place to see the whole of Tallinn at once, with the Old Town, the Soviet suburbs and the Gulf of Finland.

Time it for sunset, which on Saturday 17 October is around 6:10pm, then eat in the tower's cafe-restaurant, which keeps the same hours. A taxi or Bolt back to the center is easy.

Viru Bog is a raised bog of about 235 hectares inside the national park, with a thick layer of peat. A wooden boardwalk crosses it: the trail is about 3.5 km one way, with a loop of around 5.5 km, and a lookout tower about 1.3 km from the car park gives a view over the bog's many pools. In autumn the colors go red and copper.

The car park is about 55 km from Tallinn, roughly 50 minutes, off the Tallinn-Narva road and signposted for Viru raba. Stay on the boards, since the bog is fragile, and bring boots or waterproof shoes, because the boards are slippery in the wet.

Palmse belonged to the Baltic German von der Pahlen family from 1676 until Estonia's independence in 1919, and the present main building was begun in 1697. The manor was restored in the 1970s and 80s and now has a museum in the main house, a palm house, old estate outbuildings and a park with ponds. The estate is one of four big manors in Lahemaa, together with Sagadi, Vihula and Kolga.

Don't try to see everything. Walk the park, go through the main house and have lunch at Palmse Kõrts, the old manor inn, which is open from noon.

Altja is a small fishing village on the coast, with fishermen's huts by the sea. It's the kind of place Lahemaa is known for, and the shore is littered with boulders the glaciers left behind.

The village tavern, Altja Kõrts, is well known, but don't count on lunch there.

Käsmu was recorded as a village in 1524, and between 1884 and 1931 it had a maritime school that trained sea captains. The Käsmu Sea Museum, in a former border guard building, was founded in 1993.

Walk the shore for the light. The drive back to Tallinn takes about 80 minutes, so leave before dark, which in late October comes early.