Tallinn is a touristic place. It actually deserves it. It is a very nice town to visit. Unfortunately, Tallinn's old town is the only thing most tourists see of Estonia. As I said in other posts, what I call the best about Estonia is its nature and open spaces. But most visitors here are one-day visitors, coming for a short visit, with a cruise boat, staying from dusk till dawn, before hopping to another Baltic city.
Tallinn feels touristic inside the old town. At every street corner, there are people in medieval clothes selling some "local" finger food or making street shows, there are very expensive restaurants and plenty of handicraft shops. I heard more than once, from expats living here, that many locals try and avoid the old town because they don't like being treated as a tourist, i.e. being invited to look at the menu of restaurants or given flyers to visit the next-door exhibit, even though they are not dressed like tourists and do not behave like tourists. I don't think any of these small annoyances can justify not going through the old town, it is a beautiful place and walks there are always pleasant.
The old town
Again, last night, I felt lucky: we went out to a milonga (a social tango dancing event) in the old town and it feels great to walk back home across the Tallinn old town. It is particularly beautiful at night, when the lights are dimmed and you don't have to find your way among the crowds of day tourists or locals hurrying to their destination. And if it is rainy, it feels even more romantic.
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| Tallinn's old town, view from the Tallinn bay |
A few days ago, we went out for a small run. It was nice to run along the walls of the old town. It feels so quiet in the evening. And on the way back, we went by the seaside, which is just two blocks away from Paks Margareeta (Fat Margaret, the short but wide tower marking one of the corners of the old town). Unfortunately, the seaside of Tallinn is not well valorised and used. It is even more surprising, when considering the short distance from the old town.
The sea
As I said in another post, Tallinn is a seaside town, a port. The docks close to the old town are dedicated to passenger boats, to Helsinki and Stockholm, and to the cruise boats. Along the Kopli peninsula, there are industrial docks. In between, there is the Cultural Kilometer, a seaside walking and bicycle track that takes you to the Paterei prison (an old prison which has been abandoned and you can now visit) and the Seaplane Harbour, a beautiful and somewhat expensive museum about maritime equipment.
The seaside is under-valued today. There is one café next to Patarei and one restaurant beyond the Seaplane Harbour. But closest to the old town, next to the express boats to Helsinki, there is a huge concrete structure starting to fall apart, called Linnahall. You can still walk on it and climb its dozens of stairs up and down, and get a great view to the sea and the old town. It is a relic of the 1980 Olympic Games. Did you know that Tallinn hosted the Olympic Games? well, only part of it. The Olympics were held in Moscow, but as you know there is no sea in Moscow so they organised the sailing competition in the Tallinn bay. In over 30 years, that concrete structure in Tallinn was not much used, except as a skating ring for a while, and now it falls apart. It might take a long time before something is done about it, because it is too deteriorated to be renovated, and taking it away will be very costly.
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| Linnahall, the structure hosting the sailing races for the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and in the background Balloon Tallinn, offering one of the best views over the town and the bay. |
Anyway, the sea offers some charms too. Last weekend we went for a small dinner-cruise on board the Kajsamoor (http://www.kajsamoor.eu), an old cargo ship built in Norway before WWII and recently renovated (with EU funds) for tourism activities. We faced some rain showers on our way to the dock from home, but once on board the weather was wonderful and we had a lovely sunset. The ship went up and down the Tallinn bay and gave us wonderful views over the area and the old town. The Kajsamoor is a sailboat, but there was practically no wind that evening. On the plus side, there were no waves neither, which seems to be a characteristic of the Baltic sea.
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| On board of the Kajsamoor in the Tallinn bay: in the background, the old town. |
The rain
I mentioned rain a couple of times here, so I wanted to come back on that. I have been warned about the weather in Tallinn: it is worse than in Brussels! that says it all. I said I like the sea air, locals also warned me that sea air means cold wind in the winter. We'll see. For now, I had two weeks of bright sunshine, and two weeks made of "tropical" rain showers.
"There is no bad weather, there is only inappropriate clothing!". This is usually true. And in general I don't mind rain. At least, that was my view in Belgium. The thing is, in Tallinn, when it rains, you are going to be wet. Because often the rain does not come vertically, but nearly horizontally and it is impossible to hold an umbrella. And because you will at some point get wet by the cars driving into the numerous puddles. Yes, there are many puddles. Although the road are generally in better shape than in Belgium, in town there are a some streets where puddles create very fast, either because there are holes or bad plumbery or repetitive passage of heavy loads creating ruts (I mean, longitudinal waves in the road). So, I expect a hard, regular work of cleaning shoes and the bottom of my pants. Otherwise, as long as weather is warmish, I'll have to apply Katri's advice: short pants (or skirt) and a good pair of rubber flip-flops!
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