A Stroll Through Old Town Tallinn

While we took time during our trip to Tallinn to explore some tunnels and turrets and learn a bit about medieval history, most of the time we just sort of wandered around soaking up the warm sun and Tallinn's medieval beauty.

There are two sections of Old Town. Toompea Hill is where the settlement was first formed and it sits, strategically, on top of a hill. There are great views of Old Town, New Town and the sea from Toompea.

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral holds a prominent spot on top of Toompea right across from Toompea Castle (which I didn't get any pictures of because we were running to our tunnel tour).

The inside of the church is 100 times more spectacular than the outside of the church!

Tallinn is known for marzipan so we stopped in the Kalev (Chocolate) store to watch Hell (that was her name...really....look, it's right there on her name tag) paint some marzipan cookies. I gotta say...not really a fan of marzipan.

Town Square and Town Hall form the epicenter of Old Town.

We actually hung around to listen to a rock concert and I have to say, they were pretty good.

Many of the restaurants around the Square offer blankets if you are chilly. Nice touch.

Although Old Town is small and VERY walkable, at one point we got a smidge "lost." As we walked up and over a hill, we saw this

Freedom Square. Poor Tallinn has had the misfortune of being invaded by Swedes and Germans and Russians and Norwegians and I don't know who else. Some of those countries have invaded multiple times.   I think in the middle of all of this tourism stuff, Freedom Square helps to keep it all in perspective. 

Alcohol, medicine and lots of other things are cheaper in Tallinn so many Finns make the trip across the sea to buy whatever it is they need for less than they can get it at home. Maybe I'm sugar coating this a bit. Some people call the cruises booze cruises--Finns buy a lot of alcohol in Estonia. In fact, I think we were the only passengers on the boat who didn't have a trolley filled to the top with cases of beer.

I'm also not going to pretend that we weren't just a bit excited to enjoy a cold mug of beer at a much better price!

4 Euros in Estonia versus 8 Euros (or more) in Helsinki. Come on, you do the math!