Tallinn: Old Town in Depth - Part 8

A Walk around Tallinn

A planned walk will help you to explore the “two towns” of Tallinn while not missing out on some of the not so obvious sites. The city once consisted of two feuding medieval towns separated by a wall. The upper town on the hill, called Toompea which was the seat of government for Estonia. The lower town was an autonomous Hanseatic trading centre filled with German, Danish, and Swedish merchants who hired Estonians to do their menial labour. A lot of the Old Town’s buildings are truly old, dating from the boom times of the 15th and 16th centuries. The area fell into disrepair before the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union. The Old Town has now been slowly revitalized, though there’s still some work to be done.

Two steep, narrow streets, the “Long Leg” and the “Short Leg”, connect the upper town and the lower town. This walk is broken down into two parts. Part 1 focusing on the lower town, and Part 2 climbing up to the upper town. It goes up the short leg and then down the long leg. You should allow around two hours for the entire walk. However, this does not include time to enter museums or stop for a coffee.

The walk starts at the port which is where the cruise ships and ferries from Helsinki arrive. If you’re coming from elsewhere in Tallinn or the airport, take tram #1 or #2 to the Linnahall stop, or just walk out to the Fat Margaret Tower from anywhere in the Old Town.

Fat Margaret Tower and Start of Walk

From the port, walk towards the tall tapering spire, go through a small park, and enter the Old Town through the archway by the squat Fat Margaret Tower.

Just outside the tower, on a bluff overlooking the harbour, is half of a black arch. The other half of the arch sits in the park just below the hill. This is a memorial to 852 people who died in September of 1994 when the Estonia passenger and car ferry sank in stormy conditions during its Tallinn to Stockholm run. The ship’s bow visor came off, and water flooded into the car deck, throwing the boat off-balance. Only 137 people survived.

Fat Margaret Tower, Paks Margareeta, so called for its thick walls has guarded the entry gate of the town since medieval times. It should be noted that the sea once came much closer to this point than it does today. The relief above the gate dates from the 16th century, during Hanseatic times, when Sweden took Estonia from Germany. The Estonian Maritime Museum in the tower is very sparse and I would not waste time on it.

Once you are through the gate, then start to head up Tallinn’s main road, Pikk Street.

Continued in part 9