Photo Galleries

Talinn

August 2018

Estonia’s capital city was an important trading post on the Baltic Sea for more than 800 years. Its walled medieval quarter is full of stone towers, cobbled streets, old houses and guild halls where German-speaking merchants and craftsmen did business, and churches with ornate spires. It’s fun to wander around when the cruise ship tourists aren’t too plentiful. Elsewhere in Tallinn, old industrial zones are being renovated into hip urban hangouts, giving the city a modern feel.

Medieval merchants' houses in the center of Tallinn

Tallin's Town Hall, built in 1404

Note the dragon water spout, which works really well in the rain

Folk musicians busking with a reed pipe and a bow with a string and a drum

The Church of the Holy Spirit from the early 1400s

The church's carved alterpiece dates to 1483

A clock on the outside of the Church of the Holy Spirit made in the late 1600s

Tallinn's Three Sisters, a trio of merchants' houses built in 1362

Part of Tallinn's old city walls

One of the many "ye olde shoppe" booths and restaurants that cater to tourists

We loved the juxtaposition of this statue and the graffiti

The spire on the 13th-century Church of St. Nicholas was rebuilt after being bombed by the Soviets in WWII.

The Russian Orthodox Alexander Nevsky Church towers over Tallinn's old town

Another of Tallinn's pretty spires, on St. Mary's Cathedral

A rare Art Deco building in Tallinn

Statues of King Canute and Martin Luther on the 19th-century St. Canute's Guild Hall

The door of the Brotherhood of the Blackheads guildhouse, named for their patron saint, Egyptian St. Maurice

Carvings of the head of St. Maurice from the Brotherhood of the Blackheads guild

Tallinn is full of sidewalk cafes good for lolling away summer evenings

Art Nouveau architecture from the early 1900s in Tallinn

Although not as boozy as it used to be, Tallinn is still a destination for bachelorette weekends

Ping pong is popular at hangout spots in Tallinn's hip Telliskivi neighborhood

There's good people-watching in the Telliskivi neighborhood

A big open-air pavillion with fake grass to hang out on in Telliskivi

You know you're in the north when the airport has a vending machine selling wool slippers

Working outdoors in Tallinn's Kadriorg gardens, with a statue for company

One of the characteristic wooden "Tallinn houses" from the early 20th century in the neighborhood where we stayed

Many of the Tallinn houses have interesting decorative door