Easter in the Baltics – Tallinn day 1 | alison richards

Being a morning person on holidays sure has its advantages. I was up, breakfasted and at the viewing platform over Tallinn before anyone else got there! However, it was bloody freezing, so I definitely wasn't up there for too long. It's always nice wandering around a new city when it's quiet before anyone else gets up, you get the place to yourself to explore at will!

The viewing platform is on a place in Tallinn called Toompea. It is a limestone hill in the middle of the city, upon which a lot of government buildings, the Russian church, another church, a pub, a post office, some souvenir shops and other things were built. It was very cool, but very strange being all on this one little mound. It did start snowing while I was up there though, which was exciting. It also became apparent while I was up in Toompea that "doors of Tallinn" needs to be a hashtag. Hands down some of the best "doortraits" I've seen. I might put these in a separate posts so that the non door-enthusiasts don't have to sit through endless pictures of doors.

The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in all its glory. It was quite beautiful

From there, I walked back to the lower Old Town, where I visited the market square. By this time, the snow as coming down quite a lot so I went out to the old cobbled streets by the stone fortifications. As Tallinn was beginning to wake up, I found quiet spots where the snow hadn't been disturbed. It looked very much like a fairytale. I walked past a delicious smelling patisserie and decided to go in and get a tea and a pastry because it was so cold! I walked up the stairs nearby to the viewing platform and ate it with the view of Tallinn below me. Not bad!

The wall of the Church of the Holy Spirit, a 14th century church in Tallinn, with a beautiful clock that was made in the 17th century. The white dots are snowflakes!

The beautiful doorway to the Tallinn guild hall.

The light dusting of snow made it look like a fairytale

At the flower market. It was like the one in Riga in that it was apparently open 24 hours

After wandering around by myself, I decided to join the free walking tour of Tallinn. I'd done most of the sights that they went to, but it was interesting to hear the history behind them. The tour was run by none other than one of the guides that drove us from Riga to Tallinn yesterday (busy guy!). So at least I knew it would be entertaining. After the tour, I asked him about the Kalamaja district, a trendy area near Tallinn that I then went to explore. Most of the photos from there will be in a separate "doors of Tallinn" post.

After Kalamaja, it was time for dinner and a rest; it'd been a long day and I'd walked over 13km in -2 degrees C.