Thread: Tallinn, Estonia.....

Hi, I would highly recommend Tallinn and I would say that 3 days is an ideal duration for a visit.

Its been about 5 years since I was there, so I will leave you to the links below for details about bars, clubs etc which may have changed since then.

The Old Town is very compact and easy to walk around - although be preapared that the streets/steps to the hill on which the castle is located are quite steep. Given its political history and the economic pressures, Estonia has done a fantastic job in preserving the mediaeval character of the town. Within the City Walls you will not see the great slabs of concrete that have obliterated places like Bucharest, and what development there has been fits in better than that in, say, Riga, in neighbouring Latvia.

When I visited it was on a daytrip from Helsinki, so I cannot say anything about hotels, but there were a lot of bars and restaurants in the Old Town - I would suggest you head for the Town Hall Square in the centre and then the streets that radiate off it. Prices were cheap compared to the west, a little more expensive than Riga. Its proximity to Helsinki means that they get visitors from Finland - this means more accessible nightlife, but it may also have pushed the prices up. There were a surprising number of western/branded stores for the Baltics, and I would expect these to have risen in number. Despite this, walking around some of the streets beneath the castle and just inside the walls you could easily and genuinely believe you had gone back a few centuries.

In terms of the locals, generally welcoming and no problems that I know of - I would suggest normal precautions when out on the streets at night, but there was nothing obvious to worry about when I was there (I didnt go outside the Old Town so cannot speak for that).

As I say, the links should give you more details and pictures of what's there - Enjoy!!

<a href="http://www.tourism.tallinn.ee/index.uk.php?page=44" target="_blank">http://www.tourism.tallinn.ee/index.uk.php?page=44</A>
<a href="http://www.inyourpocket.com/estonia/tallinn/en/" target="_blank">http://www.inyourpocket.com/estonia/tallinn/en/</A>
<a href="http://eng.megainfo.ee/mapfree/bigmap.php" target="_blank">http://eng.megainfo.ee/mapfree/bigmap.php</A>