Tallinn

Tallinn was a real highlight for me. This was our third port of call and I was looking forward to it.The old walled Hanseatic City did not dissapoint. The architecture in the old town is amazing and the whole feel of the place is wonderful with cobbled streets and old gabled houses everywhere. It has seen a huge ammount of history being stuck between the Empire of Sweden, Russia and Germany it changed hands on several occasions, often more than twice in the same war.

The old medieval city has two parts, the old town inside its own city walls and the Toompea which is on a hill overlooking and connected to the city. Bizarrely the two were distinct with the old town being run by the Burghers and Guilds of the Hanseatic League and the Toompea housing the castle and govornment of Estoia but not having control over the old town. How this actually worked in practice is anyones guess.

This is one of the main gates into the old town protected by a large tower call Paks Margereeta, that translates apparantly as Fat Margaret!

 The market square below you might recognise from the the film Chitty Chitty bang bang. This where they filmed the children catcher scenes.

The first museum I came across was the Estonian museum in an old Burghers house just inside the main gates. It has a number of rooms dedicated to various stages of Estonian history. The armoury room was interesting. with cases of weapons across three walls and a small case of uniforms on the fourth.

Ths uniform case shows three different stages in the history of Estonia, the Swedish uniform was of course particularly interesting for me.

The Alexsander Nevsky Orthodox Cathedral is relatively new, I was keen though to share some of the architecture for those who might plan to game around the Baltic and wanted insipration for building styles.

St Olafs Baptist Church is interesting and I would guess more typical of the Baltic than some of the other buuildings. I got three angles of this in case I wanted to use it as inspiration for a Baltic church in future.

I saw this shop and couldnt help getting a shot, although I restrained from spending lots of money on toys!

This is the view from one of the viewing points on the Toompea which is the hill at the top of Tallin with its seperate walls (and originally seperate govornment!)

This large culverin is a replica of the original which is held in Moscow after being captured by the Russians in the 1600's.

The Kiek in de Kok artillery tower and the walls attached to it form two museums which you can visit together. The walls section held a number of exhibits but not a huge ammount of interest to us, the tower however was a different story.

A nice set of Thirty Years war armour, its original but the sword is a replica and as you can see is sat in the middle of the cafe for some reason.

A walk along the walls gives some nice views and this part of the wall has been renovated fairly sympathetically despite the modern glass windows.

A view of Alexsander Nevsky orthodox cathedral from a arrow slit in the city walls.

Below is St Nichlas's church which is quite North German in design, hardly surprising given the majority of the old towns medieval population were German merchants.

Inside the tower we are confronted by this chap, a dark age Estonian who looks to be wearing his dads armour, it doesnt fit too well does it?

A model of the city shows the seperate elements of the old town and the Toompea hill quite clearly.

This wa sa little odd, a model of eachof the original towers in the town wall plonked ont he floor so you can see how they would have looked. Odd.

This big old gun had a rennaisance crew that looked distinctly Landschnekt.

 On the third floor of the tower is a massive perspex cube with exhibits inside it and integral stairs, its quite cool. The exhibits are quite eclectic, below was an interesting one as it shows the bow and arrow case used by Tarters.

This gun and gear has a dinstincly naval look to it, but then it is a port so thats OK.

These broad swords are a different era to the hunting cross bow and have a distinctly western look to my mind. One looks like a scottish broad sword.

As I mentioned it was eclectic, these eastern weapons include a Gurkha Kukri, I doubt ths was ever used in anger in Estonia but still they are very nice.

A Persian helmet and pistols in lovely condition. No idea why they ended up in Tallin but they are nice.

The more up to date weapons make a lot more sense in an historical context for Estonia with these 20th century bayonets sword and rifle.

A pair muskets left out for the punters to handle, One flintlock one matchlock which was slimmer than I imagined. A nice touch.

I found this interesting, a cossack sashka sword from World War 2 complete with attached bayonet. I never consider cossacks havign bayonets for their carbines but there you go.

And a few more world war two Russian weapons to remind us that the Baltic played a significant part in the fighting through the war.

Back to the walls I got a couple of nice shots.

I got this last shot of a lovely German style pub with all the staff in medieval get up and the Chruch of the Holy Spirit in the backgound.

So thats Tallinn, I loved this place, so beautiful, would love to go again for a weekend. I included the pictures of the architechture as I thought it might be useful for gamers looking for buildings to popuate a Baltic game table. If I have whetted your appetite then I highly recomend that you visit.