Breakfast this morning is in Moderna – not as crowded as the Garden Café but not the range either. We headed off walking to the Old Town around 9am. It was pretty inclement so raincoats and beanie were the way to go. Considerably colder here too.
It was about a 15-minute walk to the gates of the old town – quite an easy walk despite the fact that it began to rain as we entered the gates of the walled city. Fortunately, the rain didn't last too long. The old town was built in the 13th - 16th Century when Tallinn (or Reval as it was then called) was a thriving member of the Hanseatic trade league.
Tallinn looks fairly prosperous by the look of the cars parked in the street (including a couple of Porsche Panoramas). Must do a bit of research on how they make money. It wouldn't all be from Cruise ships I'm sure.
We had a pleasant wander around the streets, past St Olav's – a 14th Century church once considered to be the tallest building in the world and finishing up at Town Hall Square. The Town Hall is the best preserved Gothic Town Hall in Northern Europe – built 1402-1404. Coffee time so we found a coffee shop which also had Wi-Fi which was a bonus. We hadn't bothered with Wi-Fi on the ship after reports that it was hopeless and I couldn't get their app to work at any rate.
We headed out through to front entrance of the city and then along the wall to St Alexander Nevsky Cathedral – quite a spectacular and imposing building built by the Russian Orthodox church in 1900.
After a little shopping (including a 10 stage Matrioshka doll and a couple of T-shirts and) we ended up at Hellemann's tower. This three-story tower and 200m section of the wall is open to the public (for 3 euro) and gives a pretty good indication of what the wall was like, although I guess it has changed considerably from when it was built in the 14th Century.
The first wall around Tallinn was ordered to be constructed by Margaret Sambiria in 1265 and for that reason, it was known as the Margaret Wall. This wall was less than 5 metres tall and about 1.5 metres thick at its base. Since that time it has been enlarged and strengthened. The walls and the many gates are still largely extant today. This is one of the reasons that Tallinn's old town became a World Heritage Site. The walls were enlarged in the fourteenth century, and citizens of Tallinn were required to turn out for guard duty, which meant to wear their armour and demonstrate their readiness to face off invaders.
It was past one o'clock by this stage so we decided to head back to the ship for a late lunch and a rest. We're pretty impressed with Tallinn's old town!
A show tonight in the theatre – Burn the Floor, a dance session set in a Latin American style. How they managed to keep up the pace for the hour of the program ceases to amaze, particularly when the girls were dancing in high heels. A pretty amazing show.
