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Tallinn, Estonia, top 10 things to do (Wimup travel guide)
▶ Video · Tallinn on Foot
Video guide · 2:00:52
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Top 10EuropeEstonia

Top 10 Things To Do in Tallinn

Country
Estonia
Best months
Jun · Jul · Aug · Dec
Population
~460K
Language
Estonian
Budget / day
$95–180
Quick answer

Three days covers Tallinn comfortably. Give the first to the old town: Raekoja plats, the pharmacy that has traded from the same rooms since 1422, then up to Toompea for the cathedral and the two viewing platforms. Day two goes east to Kadriorg and Kumu. Day three goes west to Kalamaja: the Seaplane Harbour in the morning, Telliskivi in the afternoon.

Tallinn on Foot

▶ Video guide Open the film page (2:00:52) →

Tallinn is a medieval city with a state-of-the-art civil service running underneath it. The old town is the real thing, walls and merchant houses left where a Hanseatic port put them. But it stopped being a museum piece around 2009, when a derelict rail-factory yard reopened as Telliskivi.

The 10 best things to do in Tallinn

Raekoja plats, Tallinn, Estonia (Wimup)
1

Walk the old town from Raekoja plats

Medieval old town· Raekoja plats 1, 10114 Tallinn

Intact rather than reconstructed, and inscribed in 1997 as an exceptionally complete medieval northern trading city. The Town Hall was finished in 1404, the oldest in northern Europe. Facing it, the Town Hall Pharmacy has traded from the same rooms since at least 1422. None of it takes ten minutes to cross.

Time3 hr
CostFree to walk
Best atEarly morning
TipCruise passengers reach the square in a block from mid-morning
↗ Website↗ UNESCO listingMap
Toompea, Tallinn, Estonia (Wimup)
2

Climb Toompea for the cathedral and both viewpoints

Hilltop quarter· Lossi plats 10, Toompea, Tallinn

The limestone bluff the Danes fortified in 1219, and for most of Tallinn's history a separate town: the nobility up here, the merchants below, with gates locked at night. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral was built at the height of imperial russification, and Estonians have had complicated feelings about it since.

Time1.5 hr
CostFree
Best atLate afternoon
TipThe two platforms are five minutes apart and face opposite ways
↗ Toompea CastleMap
3

Board the submarine at the Seaplane Harbour

Maritime museum· Vesilennuki 6, 10145 Tallinn

The hangars went up in 1916 as part of the tsarist naval fortress, and they are the first large reinforced-concrete shell domes ever built: three thin vaults with no internal columns. Under them sits Lembit, a submarine of 1936, which you climb through rather than look at.

Time2.5 hr
CostTicketed at the desk
Best atMorning
TipIt is a twenty-minute walk along the water from the old town through Kalamaja
↗ WebsiteMap
4

See Estonian art at Kumu

Art museum· Weizenbergi 34 / Valge 1, Kadriorg, Tallinn

Cut into the limestone slope so that a very large museum sits behind Kadriorg Park without looming over it, and European Museum of the Year in 2008. The difficult part is the Soviet decades, where socialist realism and quiet nonconformism hang in the same rooms rather than sorted into heroes and collaborators.

Time2.5 hr
CostTicketed at the desk
Best atAfternoon
TipKumu and Kadriorg Palace are a five-minute walk apart in the same park
↗ WebsiteMap
5

Walk the park to Peter the Great's palace at Kadriorg

Palace and park· Weizenbergi 37, Kadriorg, Tallinn

Peter took Tallinn from Sweden in 1710 and commissioned a summer palace eight years later, which is why a northern Baroque building on the Gulf of Finland looks lifted out of Italy. The main hall is the reason to go in. Outside, the park runs past the Swan Pond and Peter's own cottage.

Time2 hr
CostTicketed at the desk
Best atMorning
TipTram 1 or 3 from the centre drops you at Kadriorg in about ten minutes
↗ WebsiteMap
6

Climb the tower at St Olaf's Church

Church and viewpoint· Lai 50, Tallinn

The tallest church in Estonia at 123.7 metres, and it used to be far taller: between 1549 and 1625 its spire is generally held to have been the tallest built structure in the world. The climb is a tight spiral stair to a platform at 60 metres, with the old town on one side and the harbour on the other.

Time45 min
CostTicketed at the door for the tower
Best atClear afternoon
TipThe staircase is narrow and two-way
↗ WebsiteMap
7

Go under the bastions at Kiek in de Kök

Fortifications museum· Komandandi tee 2, 10130 Tallinn

A cannon tower whose Low German name means peek into the kitchen, because the garrison could see down the chimneys below. Ivan the Terrible's cannonballs are still lodged in the outer wall. The better half is underground: seventeenth-century tunnels used again as air-raid shelters and as a squat.

Time2 hr
CostTicketed at the desk
Best atAny time
TipThe bastion passages are around 8 degrees all year and tours go on a timed schedule
↗ WebsiteMap
Telliskivi Creative City, Tallinn, Estonia (Wimup)
8

Spend an afternoon in Telliskivi Creative City

Creative quarter· Telliskivi 60a, 10412 Tallinn

The old railway factory yard on the far side of the tracks, gone to seed until a film festival moved in as the first tenant in 2009. Design studios, a Saturday flea market, breweries, and enough restaurants that it is the city's default place to eat. Fifteen minutes on foot from Raekoja plats.

Time3 hr
CostFree to wander
Best atSaturday
TipThe flea market runs on Saturday mornings and is where the quarter still feels like a neighbourhood rather than a destination. Walk on to Balti jaama turg, the market hall by the station, five minutes away.
↗ WebsiteMap
9

Understand the occupations at Vabamu

History museum· Toompea 8, Tallinn

Estonia lost fifty years to occupation, and this is where that is set out plainly, built around personal testimony rather than statistics: suitcases, letters, recordings of the day people were taken. The museum also runs the KGB prison cells downhill at Pagari 1. Visit both, in that order.

Time2 hr
CostTicketed at the desk
Best atMorning
TipThe KGB cells are a separate site at Pagari 1 and a combined ticket covers the pair
↗ WebsiteMap
10

See rural Estonia at the Open Air Museum

Open air museum· Vabaõhumuuseumi tee 12, Rocca al Mare, Tallinn

Estonia was a country of farms until very recently, and this is where that country was moved to when it started disappearing: twelve farmyards, a church, a school and a fishing village, taken down where they stood and rebuilt on 72 hectares of pine woods.

Time3 hr
CostTicketed at the gate
Best atSummer afternoon
TipIt is 8 km from the centre and buses run there from the Balti jaam side of town
↗ WebsiteMap

9 of the 10, mapped

Tallinn · 9 spots
AllLandmarksMuseumsFoodFree

Tallinn travel FAQ

How many days do you need in Tallinn?+
Three for a first visit: one for the old town and Toompea, one for Kadriorg and Kumu, one for Kalamaja, the Seaplane Harbour and Telliskivi. A fourth buys a trip out. Two days is enough for the old town and nothing else, which would be a shame given how much of the interesting city is outside the walls.
Is Tallinn worth visiting in winter?+
Yes, with the caveat that December daylight runs to about six hours. The compensation is the Christmas market on Raekoja plats, and the fact that the old town in snow with no cruise passengers is a different place. Prices drop, restaurants are bookable, and the sauna culture makes more sense at minus ten.
How do you get from Tallinn Airport to the old town?+
By tram, in about twenty minutes. The airport sits four kilometres from the centre and trams 2 and 4 run from the terminal at roughly six-minute intervals, which is unusually civilised for an airport link. Tap a contactless card on the validator or buy a QR ticket before boarding.
Can you visit Helsinki as a day trip from Tallinn?+
Easily. Three operators sail the Gulf of Finland in about two hours, with several departures a day, from terminals a short walk from the old town. Leave on an early sailing and take an evening one back. Both countries are in Schengen and the euro, so there is no border formality.
Do you need a visa to visit Estonia?+
Estonia is in the European Union and the Schengen area, so the rules are the Schengen rules: EU and EEA nationals need only an identity document, and citizens of many other countries can enter visa-free for 90 days in any 180. The euro is the currency and cards work almost everywhere.
Inside the walls

Best old town landmarks in Tallinn

Six pieces of the medieval town that are still doing their original job, all within ten minutes of Raekoja plats.
Raekoja plats 11

Raeapteek, the Town Hall Pharmacy

Pharmacy · from 1422

Trading from the same rooms since at least 1422, which makes it the oldest pharmacy in Europe still working where it started. One room is a museum.

↗ WebsiteMap
Katariina käikOff Vene

Katariina käik

Artisan passage

A covered lane along the flank of the old Dominican priory, with medieval gravestones set into the wall and craft workshops opening onto it.

Map
Viru

Viru Gate

City gate · 14th century

The two round towers everybody photographs on the way in from the modern city, the surviving fore-gate of the fourteenth-century complex.

Map
Toompea Castle and Pikk HermannToompea

Toompea Castle and Pikk Hermann

Castle · seat of the Riigikogu

The parliament sits in a castle whose walls run back to the thirteenth century. The flag goes up at sunrise, and which flag flies there has been the national question.

↗ WebsiteMap
Müürivahe

Hellemann Tower and the wall walk

Wall tower and walkway

One of the surviving towers on Müürivahe, with a stretch of the covered defensive walkway open behind it. The easiest place to walk on the wall.

Map
Pühavaimu

Holy Spirit Church

Church · 14th century

A small Gothic church off Raekoja plats where the first Estonian-language sermons were preached. The painted clock outside is the oldest in Tallinn.

Map
Beyond the big two

Best museums in Tallinn

Six collections that are worth a morning once Kumu and the Seaplane Harbour are done.
Niguliste 3

Niguliste Museum

Medieval art

A medieval church turned museum of church art, and home of the surviving fragment of Bernt Notke's Danse Macabre. The nave has the acoustics for recitals.

↗ WebsiteMap
Pikk 17

Estonian History Museum

National history · Great Guild Hall

In the Great Guild Hall on Pikk, a merchant building of 1410 worth the ticket by itself. Eleven thousand years of history in about ninety minutes.

↗ WebsiteMap
Pikk 70

Fat Margaret

Maritime museum · in a gun tower

The Maritime Museum's old town half, inside the squat artillery tower at the harbour gate, with a roof terrace over the port.

↗ WebsiteMap
Kadriorg

Mikkel Museum

Private collection · Art Museum of Estonia

The former palace kitchen in Kadriorg, holding the collection given to the state in 1994: Dutch and Flemish work, porcelain and prints.

↗ WebsiteMap
PROTO Invention FactoryNoblessner

PROTO Invention Factory

Science and VR

A hands-on science and VR house in a former shipyard shed, built around inventions imagined in the nineteenth century and never made.

Map
Noblessner

Kai Art Center

Contemporary art

Contemporary art in a converted submarine factory on the Noblessner seafront, with a good bookshop. Small, serious and free of the crowds.

Map
Where to eat

Best restaurants in Tallinn

Six rooms from the Michelin Guide Estonia selection, which has covered the country since 2022.
Noblessner

180° by Matthias Diether

Two Michelin stars · tasting menu

Estonia's only two-star restaurant, on the water at Noblessner and named for the view. A long tasting menu, precise to the point of severity.

↗ WebsiteMap
Coast road, Pirita side

NOA Chef's Hall

One Michelin star

Tõnis Siigur cooks over open fire in a glass room on the coast road, looking back at the old town across the bay. A Michelin star since the guide arrived.

↗ WebsiteMap
Telliskivi

Fotografiska

Michelin Green Star and Bib Gourmand

The restaurant on top of the photography museum, holding a Michelin Green Star for sourcing and a Bib Gourmand for what it charges.

Map
Noblessner

Lore Bistroo

Bib Gourmand · bistro

A harbourside bistro at Noblessner with a Bib Gourmand for cooking more ambitious than the price suggests, in a converted industrial hall.

Map
Old town

Mantel ja Korsten

Bib Gourmand

A small old town dining room off Rataskaevu with a Bib Gourmand, cooking a short modern Estonian menu. Book it: there are not many tables and the city knows.

Map
Old town

FUME

Bib Gourmand · wood fire

Smoke and fire are the whole idea, from a wood-fired kitchen with a Bib Gourmand. Loud, informal and the easiest of these to get into.

Map
Coffee and pastry

Best cafes and bakeries in Tallinn

Five places that explain why Estonians treat the café as an institution rather than a stop.
Pikk 16

Maiasmokk

Café · since 1864

Open since 1864 and the oldest café in Estonia, in rooms that have barely changed: dark panelling and a marzipan counter painted by hand.

↗ WebsiteMap
Kalamaja

RØST

Bakery and coffee

A Scandinavian-minded bakery in Kalamaja, and the address most locals name first for a cinnamon bun. It sells out well before closing.

Map
Kesklinn and Kalamaja

Paper Mill

Specialty roaster

An Estonian roaster that has made Europe's specialty top lists, with a café in the centre and a larger room with a bakery counter in Kalamaja.

Map
Kesklinn

Sesoon

Brunch

A café and restaurant that draws the city for brunch, cooking a seasonal menu rather than a fixed one. Go early on a weekend or expect to wait.

Map
Toompark, Kalamaja, Põhjala

KIOSK

Coffee kiosks

Three small specialty coffee kiosks around the city, one just outside the wall, one in Kalamaja and one at the Põhjala brewery. No seats, which is the point.

Map
After dark

Best bars and nightlife in Tallinn

Five rooms that cover the range, from a 1990s pub to a distillery bar, without leaving the centre.
Pärnu mnt 12

Whisper Sister

Cocktails · speakeasy

A basement cocktail bar done as 1920s New York, down to the discretion at the door. The best drinks in the city, in a room quiet enough to talk in.

↗ WebsiteMap
Pikk 39

Hell Hunt

Pub · since 1993

Opened in 1993 and billed as the first pub in newly independent Estonia. Sixty-odd beers and a courtyard that fills the moment the weather allows.

↗ WebsiteMap
Telliskivi

Pudel Baar

Craft beer

Estonia's first craft beer bar, in a Tsarist-era engine repair shed at Telliskivi. The taps rotate hard and the staff will talk you through them.

↗ WebsiteMap
Telliskivi

Junimperium

Gin distillery bar

The bar attached to Estonia's first open craft gin distillery, in Telliskivi. Tour the still and then drink what comes off it.

↗ WebsiteMap
Old town

Sigmund Freud

Cocktails

A cocktail bar that organises its list by the four classical temperaments and asks you to order by mood. The drinks survive the gimmick.

Map
Where to base yourself

Best neighborhoods in Tallinn

Five districts, each a different Tallinn, and none more than twenty-five minutes from the last.
KalamajaNorthwest of the walls

Kalamaja

Wooden houses · Põhja-Tallinn

Wooden houses in faded colours, built for factory workers when the rail works arrived, and now the most sought-after address in the city.

↗ WebsiteMap
East of the centre

Kadriorg

Park and villas

The palace park and the villa streets around it, with Kumu and Peter the Great's cottage inside the grounds. The one part where the imperial century is legible.

Map
Rotermann QuarterBetween the old town and the port

Rotermann Quarter

Industrial heritage · redeveloped

A nineteenth-century industrial block rebuilt with sharp contemporary architecture dropped into the shells of the flour mills and warehouses.

Map
Põhja-Tallinn

Noblessner

Seafront · former shipyard

A former submarine shipyard on the water, now a seafront quarter with a two-star restaurant and a swimming pontoon in summer.

Map
PiritaNortheast

Pirita

Beach and marina

The beach district northeast of the centre, with a ruined convent, the marina built for the 1980 Olympic regatta and pine forest behind it.

Map
Out of the city

Best day trips in Tallinn

Five trips you can do and be back for dinner, by bus, ferry or train.
Lahemaa National Park and the Viru bog1 hr east

Lahemaa National Park and the Viru bog

National park · from 1971

The first national park in the Soviet Union, and now 747 square kilometres of coast and bog an hour east. The Viru boardwalk is a free 3.5 km loop.

Map
Across the gulf

Helsinki by ferry

Ferry · about 2 hr each way

Two hours across the Gulf of Finland, with several sailings a day and operators competing hard on price. Back the same evening.

↗ WebsiteMap
Southeast

Tartu

University city · 2 hr by train

Estonia's university town, two hours south by train, with the national museum and a university founded in 1632. European Capital of Culture in 2024.

↗ WebsiteMap
North, in the bay

Naissaar

Island · summer ferries

An island off the bay, militarised for most of the twentieth century and now mostly pine forest and abandoned Soviet defences. Summer ferries only.

Map
30 to 60 min west

Keila-Joa and the Pakri cliffs

Waterfall and coast

A wide waterfall in a manor park half an hour west, paired with the limestone cliffs and lighthouse beyond Paldiski. The waterfall wants a car.

Map
What's on

Festivals & annual events in Tallinn (2026)

Time your trip around the city's biggest dates.
24 February

Independence Day

The anniversary of the 1918 declaration, with a military parade and concerts. Deep winter, so dress for standing still outdoors.

9–12 April 2026

Tallinn Music Week

Several hundred acts across venues all over the city, plus a conference. Running since 2009, and the best week for Estonian bands.

25 April – 2 May 2026

Jazzkaar

The international jazz festival, centred on Telliskivi. Free lunchtime sets in unlikely places are part of the format.

5–7 June 2026

Old Town Days

The old town turns into a stage for three days of street performance, balcony concerts and craft markets.

23–24 June

Jaanipäev

Midsummer, and the biggest date in the Estonian calendar. The city empties towards bonfires in the countryside.

10–12 July 2026

Tallinn Maritime Days

The waterfront festival, with tall ships and naval vessels open to board, concerts on the quays and the sea trades on display.

July

Medieval Days

Raekoja plats fills with a period market, craftspeople working in the open and performances in costume.

6–22 November 2026

Black Nights Film Festival

Running since 1997 and one of the largest film festivals in northern Europe: seventeen days of screenings in the darkest month.

Getting around

Tallinn transport & airports

How to arrive and move around the city.
TLL

Lennart Meri Tallinn Airport

Four kilometres from the centre, closer than almost any capital airport in Europe. Trams 2 and 4 run from the terminal door in about twenty minutes, and a Bolt takes ten.

↗ WebsiteMap
Helsinki 2 hr

Ferries and the passenger port

Three operators sail to Helsinki in about two hours, with several departures a day. The terminals are a fifteen to twenty minute walk northeast of the old town, and tram 2 serves the port.

↗ WebsiteMap
Trams 1–4

Trams, buses and trolleybuses

Tallinn made public transport free for registered residents in 2013, the largest city in the world to do so at the time. Visitors pay by contactless card or QR ticket.

↗ WebsiteMap
Elron

Trains from Balti jaam

Elron runs the national network from Balti jaam, on the edge of the old town beside Telliskivi. Tartu is two hours south, Narva two and a half east. Cheap and rarely full.

↗ WebsiteMap
Traditional food

Must-try dishes in Tallinn, Estonia

The classics to order before you leave.
Verivorst, Tallinn (Wimup travel guide)

Verivorst

Blood sausage of pork, barley and blood, roasted with sauerkraut and lingonberry jam.

Mulgipuder, Tallinn (Wimup travel guide)

Mulgipuder

Barley and potato mashed with butter and topped with fried onion and bacon.

Must leib

Sour, dense black rye bread, and the fixed point of Estonian eating.

Kiluvõileib

The national open sandwich: buttered black bread, a marinated Baltic sprat, egg and spring onion.

Sült

Jellied meat, set in its own stock and sliced cold with mustard. A holiday dish that divides visitors.

Rosolje

A beetroot salad of potato, herring, egg and sometimes apple, an alarming magenta.

Kama

A flour of roasted barley, rye, oats and peas, stirred into kefir with berries.

Kohuke

A bar of sweetened curd in a chocolate shell, sold in every shop cooler.

Tallinn fact sheet

Tallinn at a glance

The essentials worth knowing before you go.
Country
Estonia
Region
Northern Europe, on the Gulf of Finland
Population
Around 460,000 in the city, roughly a third of Estonia's 1.36 million
Founded
First firmly recorded in 1219, when a Danish fleet under Valdemar II landed at Lyndanise and fortified Toompea
Nickname
The name itself: Taani linn, the Danish town, for the castle the Danes built here
Language
Estonian, a Finnic language related to Finnish. English is widely spoken in the centre and Russian is a first language for a large minority
Currency
Euro (EUR), adopted in 2011. Cards are accepted almost everywhere, including on public transport
Time zone
Eastern European Time (UTC+2), and UTC+3 from late March to late October
Calling code
+372, with no area codes anywhere in the country
Airports
Lennart Meri Tallinn Airport (TLL), 4 km southeast of the centre
Power
230 V, 50 Hz, plug types C and F
Emergency
112 for police, fire and ambulance
Ideal length
3–4 days
Getting around
The old town on foot, then trams, buses and trolleybuses. Free for registered residents, ticketed for visitors
Tourism board
Official site

Interesting facts

  • The historic centre was inscribed by UNESCO in 1997 as an exceptionally complete example of a medieval northern European trading city.
  • Tallinn Town Hall was completed in 1404 and is the oldest in northern Europe, and the only Gothic one in the region to survive intact.
  • The Town Hall Pharmacy first appears in the council ledger in 1422 and has traded from the same rooms ever since.
  • Between 1549 and 1625 St Olaf's spire stood at around 159 metres, generally held to have been the tallest structure in the world.
  • In January 2013 Tallinn made public transport free for registered residents, the largest city in the world to have done so.

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