Cruise Through History: Ancient and Arty Tallinn

By Marina Aagaard, MFE

Baltic Cruise Day 5: Excursion Day Tallinn

Stop today: Tallinn, Lyndanisse, the capital and largest city of Estonia. The city has appox. 420.050 inhabitants and is situated on the northern coast of Estonia (just 80 km south of Helsinki, Suomi-Finland on the other side of the Baltic Sea; estonians are a Finnic people speaking Estonian, a Finno-Ugric language).
The city was founded around 1100, and later conquered and occupied by Danes, Germans, Swedes and Russians before declaration of independance  in 1991.

09:00 Arrival Tallinn
15:30 All on board
16:00 Departure Tallinn

Cruise ship moors close to the city centre, so it is easy to step onto the tourist information centre on the quay and get all the information you need, take a TallinnSightseeing tour (approx. 2½ hour) or simple walk around the city centre – or both.
Cruise ship also offers several tours (at a price).

Inevitable images: Some ancient, some arty architecture and mixed emotion moments:

Last photo: Estonia memorial: MS Estonia was the name of a cruise ferry built in 1979. The ship sank i 1994 in the Baltic Sea with 852 lives lost; primarily Scandinavians and some Estonians. One of the worst maritime disasters ever … and one that impacted international concepts of ferry safety onwards.
 

Summary:
A sight to see. An amazing city centre, the very well preserved Old City, Vanalinn, built between the 15th to 17th century, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Other interesting ‘sites’ were the modern parts of the city, avantgarde buildings and designs mixed with greyish Russian architecture. The quiet Kalamaja part of city with wooden houses, Tallinn-Houses from 1920-1930, was also unique.

In conclusion you could easily spend much more time there, more time for visiting the Tallinn tunnels, museums, beach, the Kadriorg Palace (baroque pearl of Estornia) and Garden and surroundings.

Daily program offers stretching and more stretching plus yoga, aerobics and more aerobics, medison dance and samba, cumbia, mix latino as well as lots of games, demonstrations, bingo and karaoke and today Nordic Disco with DJ Marco.

Early departure meant more time on board, so there was ample time to sample. Today was a dancing day. To even things out a fine four-course meal did its job.

In my dreams.