Kaarli Church on Toompea

Tallinn's grandest 19th-century church sets itself apart with its twin steeples, immense size and neo-Roman style.

It was built from 1862 to 1882 as a long overdue replacement for the original Kaarli Church, founded in 1670 on the order of Sweden's King Charles XI. Like many wooden structures located outside the city wall, the first Kaarli Church burned down during the Great Northern War in the early 1700s.

The Kaarli Church is home to the first Estonian fresco, “Come to Me,” painted in 1879 by famed Tallinn artist Johann Köler. It also boasts the country's largest churc

Kadriorg Art Museum

This grand, baroque palace built for Peter the Great in 1718-1725 now houses the Art Museum of Estonia's foreign collection. Designed by Italian architect Niccolo Michetti, the palace and surrounding manicured gardens are a humbling example of Tsarist extravagance.

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In its current role as the Kadriorg Art Museum, it displays hundreds of 16th- to 20th-century paintings by Western and Russian artists, as well as prints, sculptures and other works.

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Surrounding the Palace are several interesting palace side buildings. For example, the restored kitchen building houses a cosy art museum called the Mikkel Museum, and the humble summer cottage is the Peter I House Museum.

St Catherine's Passage

Easily the most picturesque of Old Town's lanes, this half-hidden walkway runs behind what used to be St. Catherine's Church. 

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The passage is home to the St. Catherine's Guild, a collection of craft workshops where artists use traditional methods to create and sell glassware, hats, quilts, ceramics, jewellery, hand-painted silk and other wares. The workshops are housed in the small, 15th- to 17th-century rooms on the south side of the lane, and are set up in an open-studio fashion so visitors can watch the artists at work, be it glass-blowing, weaving or pottery making.

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No other place in Tallinn combines creativity with a medieval atmosphere quite like it.

Old Town

Wisting cobblestone lanes and iron street lamps. Gothic spires and medieval markets. Cappuccino and Wi-Fi. This is the city's famous Old Town. 

If you're looking for that mix of historic ambience and cutting-edge culture that defines Tallinn, you'll find it here.

Built up from the 13th to 16th centuries, when Tallinn – or Reval as it was known then – was a thriving member of the Hanseatic trade league, this enclosed neighbourhood of colourful, gabled houses, half-hidden courtyards and grandiose churches is, quite rightly, the city's biggest tourist draw. And the fact that it's all neatly packaged within a mostly-intact city wall and dotted with guard towers gives it an extra dose of fairytale charm. It’s small, compact, and very easily explored on foot.