FIVE DAYS IN TALLINN, ESTONIA
Tallinn, Estonia | Tallinn, Estland | Tallinn, Estonie | Tallinn, Estonia | Tallin, Estonia | 爱沙尼亚塔林 | エストニア、タリン | 에스토니아 탈린
Estonia appeared in my travel plans almost by accident. Before that trip, I had already visited Lithuania twice and had also spent several days in Riga during a business trip that still left enough time for exploring the city itself. Estonia, however, remained a complete unknown. The only things I really associated with it were the usual clichés most Europeans know – a small Baltic country between Latvia, Russia and Finland, modern, highly digitalised and technologically advanced. Beyond that, I had absolutely no image of Tallinn in my mind. In fact, before leaving, I barely looked at photographs, guidebooks or even Wikipedia. No expectations had been built in advance. I fully relied on a collegue of mine who organised the trip.
The whole journey was slightly unusual from the beginning. The idea was to travel along the Via Baltica route through all three Baltic states – Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – with a short ferry crossing to Helsinki. Tallinn itself was initially supposed to be more of a stopover than the main destination. The plan included travelling through Vilnius and Riga, continuing north to Estonia, then taking the ferry to Finland for a day before returning to Poland on an overnight coach journey and not staying yet another night in Talllin.
That overnight return immediately felt like a problem to me. For many years I have disliked travelling through the night or the whole day. I prefer being rested, properly awake and able to enjoy a place rather than spending the following day half-asleep after hours on a coach. In fact, I think I only once attempted this kind of overnight journey many years ago during a trip to London, and very quickly realised that it simply was not for me. For more than twenty years, I have followed one simple rule when it comes to organised tours – if a trip looks genuinely interesting, I usually contact the organiser directly and arrange things in my own way starting or leaving the organised tour at an agreed point. This time, I decided to leave the group earlier and fly home independently a few days later.
The main question was where exactly to separate from the tour. Helsinki was one possibility, Tallinn another. When I discussed it with the organiser, he told me that Tallinn would probably suit me best, especially because of its medieval walls, towers and exceptionally photogenic old town.
He turned out to be completely right.
In the end, I spent three additional days in Tallinn and never regretted that decision for a moment. Altogether, with a short interruption for Finland, I spent nearly five days there – partly with the organised group and guide, and partly alone, exploring the city entirely at my own pace.
The journey itself actually began before Estonia. The night before joining the group, I stayed in Malbork, which gave me an extra day to photograph the castle there. Afterwards came Vilnius, a city I already knew well enough that I did not feel the need to follow every part of the guided tour. At times, I even wandered off on my own for a while. Riga also felt somewhat familiar already. Tallinn was the only truly unknown city along the route.
We arrived from Riga in the evening, and my first impression of Tallinn was unexpected. The city felt dark.
Of course, certain buildings and parts of the old town were illuminated, restaurants were open and people were walking through the square, but overall the city seemed much more subdued than many other European old towns. There was no overwhelming brightness, no feeling that every façade had been turned into a theatrical backdrop for tourists. Photographing the city actually proved slightly difficult at first because there simply was not that much light.
And yet that darkness suited Tallinn perfectly.
The old town did not feel like a brightly lit tourist stage set. There were visitors everywhere, especially around the market square, but the atmosphere still remained calmer than in places such as Amsterdam, where tourism can sometimes become overwhelming. In Tallinn it was still possible to turn into a side street and suddenly find complete silence – just stone walls, narrow alleys and old buildings without crowds.
The following day was devoted to regular sightseeing with the group. The weather unfortunately was not ideal because there was light drizzle for much of the time. Even so, Tallinn made a very strong impression. The medieval walls, towers and extraordinary consistency of the historic centre were striking. In many European cities old towns were rebuilt after wars or mixed heavily with modern architecture. Tallinn felt unusually complete and authentic.
During that guided walk two particular stories stayed in my memory.
The first concerned safety. At one point the guide led us to an unassuming building, opened the door and casually explained that this was the office of the Estonian Prime Minister. There were cameras and security systems, of course, but the building itself felt surprisingly open and accessible. The guide explained that Estonia was considered a very safe country and that this reflected a broader social mentality there.
The second story concerned Estonian singing culture. It was there that I first heard more about the so-called Singing Revolution – the peaceful demonstrations in the late 1980s during which collective singing became one of the symbols of Estonia’s path away from Soviet control and towards regained independence. Singing still remains deeply rooted in Estonian culture today, with large choral festivals continuing to play an important social role.
After the short one-day ferry trip to Helsinki, the group continued according to the original programme while I returned to my hotel in Tallinn. Trip to Helsinki itself had been exhausting – waking up around five in the morning, boarding the ferry early, spending the whole day away and returning close to midnight. I needed to rest. Consequently, the following day became much slower.
Since it was Monday, many museums were closed anyway, which naturally encouraged a quieter pace.
That was also the moment when Tallinn really began to feel personal rather than organised.
The city quickly became a place for wandering without any strict plan. Some walks followed routes I had already seen with the guide, while others led into completely different streets and quiet corners of the old town. Much of my time was spent simply walking and photographing buildings, walls, gates and rooftops. Tallinn is an exceptionally photogenic city, so even aimless wandering soon became enjoyable in itself.
I had lunch on the market square several times during my stay. Sitting outside among the old houses and simply watching people gradually became one of the nicest parts of being there. The Gothic Town Hall standing in the middle of the square – built from pale grey limestone typical of northern Estonia – gave the entire space a very distinctive atmosphere. Many of the buildings surrounding the square date back to the medieval Hanseatic period, mainly between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, which gives the old town its remarkable architectural consistency. Tourists, conversations and restaurant noise were all present, yet somehow the city still felt calm.
Even the hotel reflected that atmosphere. Parts of the old stone walls had been deliberately left exposed inside the building, so the feeling of staying in a medieval city was present almost constantly, not only while walking through the streets outside.
At some point it became obvious that the real pleasure of Tallinn was not traditional sightseeing but simply being there.
Despite Estonia’s reputation for technology and digital solutions, that aspect did not dominate the experience at first. It appeared instead in small everyday situations. Using public transport in Tallinn turned out to be absurdly simple. Instead of searching for ticket machines, applications or paper tickets, all that was necessary was touching a bank card against the reader when entering. The system automatically charged the correct fare and even remembered later that the same ticket was still valid during transfers. Everything worked naturally and intuitively without forcing passengers to think about the system itself.
I actually visited very few interiors during my stay in Tallinn, and somehow that never really bothered me. The only church I explored properly was the Holy Spirit Church. When I entered, there were almost no people inside. For most of the time, I wandered through the interior alone with my camera, photographing details in complete silence, interrupted only occasionally by someone quietly stepping in for a moment before leaving again. The atmosphere felt calm, intimate and strangely removed from the busy tourist world outside.
The next day, which was Tuesday, involved choosing between several possibilities. One option was Kadriorg Palace – the elegant green-and-white baroque residence built for Peter the Great in the early eighteenth century and surrounded by one of Tallinn’s most beautiful parks. Another possibility was exploring Tallinn Castle on Toompea Hill, with its medieval fortifications and long political history connected both to the old Estonian nobility and later Russian rule.
In the end, however, I chose something slightly less obvious and decided to visit the Estonian Maritime Museum at Lennusadam instead. Partly because I wanted a break from churches, palaces and old stones, and partly because the museum itself sounded unusually interesting.
That choice turned out to be excellent.
The museum occupies a huge former seaplane hangar and feels extremely modern in its presentation. Light, sound and interactive exhibitions fill the enormous space without becoming overwhelming. The most memorable part, however, was the submarine Lembit displayed in the centre of the hall. Visitors are allowed to walk through it with cameras, exploring the narrow interior freely. By pure luck, very few people were there at the same time, so for much of the visit the submarine could almost be explored alone. It was actually the first opportunity in my life to properly see the inside of a submarine. Afterwards there was still time to walk around the harbour area and photograph ships displayed outside. Some could be partially entered while others remained moored nearby and visible only from the outside.
The walk to the museum also revealed another side of Tallinn – ordinary everyday life beyond the old town itself. Apartment blocks, detached houses and residential streets suddenly became more interesting than expected. One detail especially stood out – the widespread use of siding on buildings, including some larger residential structures. Similar architecture had already appeared earlier in Latvia and Lithuania, but in Estonia it became much more noticeable. In Poland such solutions are far less common outside small detached houses.
At one point I also entered a supermarket used by local residents. Strangely enough, navigating it felt completely natural because so many familiar European brands and products were present. The same packaging, the same products, the same atmosphere. It became one of those odd moments when a place simultaneously feels foreign and familiar.
Another surprising thing was that Tallinn never truly felt Scandinavian to me.
Estonia is often described as Nordic or Scandinavian in spirit, but personally I did not experience it that way at all. If those influences existed, they remained invisible to me. The overwhelming impression instead came from the medieval city itself – the walls, stone streets and extraordinarily preserved old town.
And perhaps that became the greatest surprise of all.
No expectations had existed before arriving there. No carefully constructed image of Tallinn had formed in advance. Yet suddenly one of the best-preserved medieval old towns in Europe appeared almost unexpectedly.
While Poland, Lithuania and Latvia were experiencing heavy summer heat, Tallinn remained much more comfortable – temperatures somewhere in the low twenties, sunlight mixed with light clouds and perfect conditions for walking. Time passed slowly there. Lunches on the market square, coffee breaks, wandering through quiet streets and simply watching people gradually became more important than ticking attractions off a list.
The final day unfolded exactly the way I like journeys to end.
The flight was only in the afternoon – around two or three o’clock – so there was no need for stress, rushing or waking up before dawn. Breakfast was eaten calmly, most things were packed in advance and there was still enough time for one final walk and several last photographs. Before leaving, I spent some time sitting in a small café overlooking the old town, drinking coffee and eating a delicious cake.
My hotel was located on the upper part of the old town, relatively close both to the railway station and the bus station. From there a direct bus went to the airport, and because Tallinn is not a particularly large city, the journey lasted perhaps twenty or thirty minutes.
Because Estonia is one hour ahead of Central Europe, landing in Poland around four in the afternoon somehow felt as though I gained extra timeduring the journey back. In a way, that sensation summed up the entire experience of Tallinn perfectly. The city seemed to offer several additional days of calmness, wandering without plans and simply existing in a place about which almost nothing had been known beforehand.
