Tallinn

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Another blue skies day with plenty of sunshine in the Baltics. We roamed around the medieval city of Tallinn, a UNESCO world heritage site. At times it felt as though we were walking around a large open air museum. The cobbled streets, and pastel coloured town houses with a number of churches dotted around. Large wooden doors ornately decorated and decorated shutters are commonplace. Our first stop was The Church of the Virgin Mary built in 1219 by the Danes. This was our favourite church so far plain simple and white, with a colour coordinated interior - the organ, pulpit and high sided pews were all a very pale green and the stained glass windows also had a pale green trim. Outside the copper tiled roof also gave a green edge to complement the white exterior walls. Breathtakingly beautiful. From here we took in the Aleksander Nevski Cathedral with yet more Byzantine bulbs topping the towers. Continuing through the cobbled streets, we found ourselves in Toompea, the upper part of the town. The old town walls providing a magnificent panoramic viewing platform of the red roofs of the lower town, and in the distance the modern glass skyscrapers in the new part of the city provided contrast. Back down in the lower town we sheltered from the hottest part of the day in the Photography museum located in a 14th century prison. The building consisted of 6 rooms over three floors, the staircases required careful negotiation of some of the steepest stairs I have ever encountered. The museum chronicled the history of Tallinn in images, beginning with some rare daguerreotype and amberreotype plates, sepia images, early pictures coloured by water paints to images of Estonian soldiers at war. Alongside the images was a vast collection of cameras from the late nineteenth century and through to 1940s. Curiously, looking at these ancient images of the town it was possible to recognise similar images to those that we had been taking that morning. I was also fascinated by some very early photocompositions from late 1800s that were produced as April fool’s day cards……no photoshop software back then. Next stop Chocolats de Pierre where we ordered a decadent mug of hot chocolate. The mug was lined with melted dark chocolate before the rich smooth chocolate drink was added, and a cinnamon stick to stir. Yum! The best advice from the tour books yet! A quick visit to the Town museum which provided more details of the history of Tallinn town.

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