Tinbergs on Tour: Saturday, July 27, 2013 – Tallinn, Estonia – Partly Cloudy

St. Petersburg to Tallinn: 160 Nautical Miles

Local Information: Tallinn was founded in 1154 making it one of the oldest cities in the Baltic. The Old Town of Tallinn has been largely unchanged for almost 800 years. It was the site of one of the oldest pharmacies in Europe. Today, Estonia ranks fourth in the world in mathematics proficiency.

A beautiful day – perhaps the best we have seen – in Tallinn, Estonia

It is only a 15 minute walk from the cruise terminal to the center of town so the plan today is to see as much of Tallinn as we can before the early all aboard at 2:45 PM. The Cruise Terminal had free WiFi so we logged on and checked e-mail. That would save us a trip to the McDonald’s near the Old Town Gate.

The city has a number of Medieval Gates and towers. Fat Margaret, a cannon tower, was completed in 1530 (and maybe named after a cook that work in the area) and has a diameter of 25 meters and a height of only 20 meters. You can see how the name might fit. It doesn’t have any cannons today as it is the home of the Estonian Maritime Museum.

Skinny Ellen and Fat Margaret

We continued our walk along The Great Coastal Gate and its wonderful gardens.

Great Coastal Gate and Flower Gardens

Ellen is admiring the flowers in the photo below – can you find her?

Using the church towers as a guide, we made our way to the Old City. On the way, we came across a small park complete with a cascading fountain and a statue of a deer. Too nice to pass up photo-wise.

Deer Fountain Old City

If you get lost in Tallinn, you can always use the map below to find your way. It’s a little old but so is the Old City.

Old Town Tallinn – Note the Cars

It was a bit warm and too hilly to venture up to the upper level of the Old City so our walk concentrated on the lower city. One of the sites that can’t be missed is the largest Medieval structure in Tallinn, St. Olaf’s Church (ca. 1267).

St. Olaf’s Church

We found our way to the town square. The restaurants were all filled with diners. Most incredible thing about this picture – the perfect, cloudless, blue sky.

Town Square and Church of the Holy Ghost

We headed back to the ship to get a late lunch before the rest of the passengers came back en masse. On the walk back, we saw a picturesque garden complete with fountain as well as some girls practicing their archery.

Square with Fountain

Archery Practice

We passed some shops along the way – I wanted a cap from Estonia but it is not a country that caters to large cap sizes.

The Constellation is docked along the Oceania Nautica - two fine ships.

Constellation and Oceania Nautica

We made it to the Ocean View Café in time to get lunch. I went out on the open deck to try to pull WiFi from the Cruise Terminal. It was intermittent so instead I got a great picture of the Tallinn skyline. Left to right: The Toomkirike, Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, and St. Olaf’s Church. I included the tall industrial chimney because it is an interesting structure.

Tallinn Skyline and Three Churches

An early sail away means great pictures. Blue skies and blue waters – a perfect combination.

Tallinn Sail Away

Dinner tonight was in the San Marco Dining Room.

Tonight’s Show is one produced by “Cirque Journey” and called “The Man from Mars”. There are two performers - a mime magician, and an aerialist-contortionist. The magic and the aerial work was top flight. The mime was very funny and interacted well with the audience. We found out later that the performers are a husband and wife team – Dizzy and Janna (he is from the UK and she may be Russian or Ukrainian). They were very good.