Tallinn boasts the kind of
stunning chocolate box old town that Disney executives can only dream of. Its old core is almost impossibly pretty, all
cobbles,
castles and
church spires with an eye-catching smorgasbord of medieval and baroque architecture.
Estonia’s capital city, tucked right up at the northeastern extremity of Europe on the shores of the
Baltic Sea, has been hailed as the
‘New Prague’ and justifiably so, though it is more compact and easier to get around.
Until 1991, Tallinn was clamped under the confines
of
Soviet rule, but since it broke free in a
bloodless revolution, it has made up for five decades of lost independence by switching seamlessly from communism to
capitalism.
Marx is out and
mobile phones are in with the city so switched on (with one of the highest mobile phone ownership rates in the world and Internet cafes and Wi-Fi hotspots springing up all over Tallinn) that the locals like to call their increasingly
high-tech country E-stonia.
On the fringes of the old core a new district is emerging, with gleaming new hotels and offices, as Estonia thrives in the
EU membership it attained in 2004. Anyone arriving in Tallinn with anachronistic images of what an old Soviet Bloc city should look like will be as surprised by this
new skyline as they will be by the
charming old core.
Russian orthodox churches and
Dominican monasteries share the streets with old merchant houses and medieval meeting halls and Tallinn’s atmospheric old town, steeped in history, is best explored on foot.
Art and
culture in Tallinn is taken as seriously by locals as the fun-filled and unpretentiously
raucous nightlife.
The Columbus World Travel Guide has been published for 26 years and is sold in over 90 countries worldwide.
Related Tallinn Content
Word Travels is a comprehensive travel guide covering hundreds of cities and holiday resorts in more than 125 countries.
Related Estonia Content
The Columbus World Travel Guide has been published for 26 years and is sold in over 90 countries worldwide.
Word Travels is a comprehensive travel guide covering hundreds of cities and holiday resorts in more than 125 countries.
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