Anyone visiting the Kadriorg Palace should also consider dropping into the Mikkel Museum, just over the road. Donated by a private collector, Johannes Mikkel, in 1994, the museum’s works now make up one of Tallinn’s most impressive displays of foreign art. Items here include alluring antique Chinese porcelain, Flemish and Dutch paintings and Italian engravings.
Opened in 2006, the Kumu is the impressive new main building of the Art Museum of Estonia, and it’s naturally a magnet for every visitor interested Estonian culture. The immense, hightech facility serves as both a national gallery, displaying the classics of Estonian art, and a contemporary art museum, showing off the latest trends.
You can't visit Tallinn without a visit to this magnificent northern Baroque palace, built by Peter the Great for his wife, Catherine I, in the early 18th century. The grandiose palace and surrounding manicured gardens are a humbling example of Tsarist extravagance, but just as important a reason to come is that this is also home to the foreign art collection of the Art Museum of Estonia.
You don't have to have an ear for Bach to appreciate the curiosities on display in the Theatre and Music Museum. They range from the crude birch horns and archaic Estonian stringed instruments to antique harpsichords, violins, organs and pianos. The hand-cranked, 19th century music machines - some with moving figures on top - are particularly fascinating.
Housed in the old granary, itself a remarkable Old Town structure, the museum shows off the country’s most impressive works of applied art from the early 1900s to today. Estonia’s artists have developed a tradition of producing fantastic, often dreamlike creations in glass, ceramics, textile, leather, metalwork and jewellery. Temporary exhibitions on the ground floor put the spotlight on newer ideas.
One of the most versatile Estonian artists of the 20th century, Adamson-Eric (1902-1968), worked in a number of disciplines ranging from oil paints to furniture design. His creations, displayed in this medieval-merchant-house-turned-museum, include bright oil paintings, cave paintings on teapots, inventive jewellery and a variety of other items. The originality and power of his work makes it seem fresh, even today.
This 2.5-hour combined bus and walking tour is an excellent way for first-time visitors to get to know Tallinn. Picking up at the passenger port and major hotels, the trip takes visitors through the most interesting sections of the city, past the Kadriorg Park and the Song Festival Grounds to the Pirita district, all the while providing running commentary on Estonian history and contemporary life. The walking portion of the tour covers Old Town, proceeding across Toompea hill, stopping at the Parliament Building, Aleksander Nevsky Cathedral, the Dome Church and the scenic overlook. It then leads to the narrow, winding streets of the Lower Town, finally ending up on Town Hall Square. Interesting historical tidbits about the town’s development make the tour all the more worthwhile. visit http://www.travel2baltics.com for more info.
On this self-guided tour, a specialised Audioguide playback device provides fascinating, narrated information on Old Town's key sights. It's a perfect way to set your own itinerary and explore Tallinn at your own pace. You need a valid credit card (Visa or MasterCard) and a photo ID. Available in Estonian, English, Finnish, Swedish, German, and Russian.
Tallinn Card: At the Tourist Information Centre free Audioguide and headphone rental up to six hours, to be returned before closing time.
Estonia is one of the very few countries in the world where you’ll actually hear locals gripe and grumble that the winter hasn’t been cold enough. Visiting foreigners, darting from hotel to café to avoid the chilled winds, understandably think the Estonians are all quite mad. But considering the wet, drippy Christmas Estonia has had to endure, and the dull, rainy weeks that followed, the euphoria in the air at the end of January when the mercury finally dropped and the snows came makes perfect sense.
With luck, the weather pattern will hold, and Tallinn’s Old Town will retain its beautiful, snow-covered, picture-postcard look well into February and March.Even though the tourist season has wound down considerably, this gives brave winter visitors more room to explore the medieval streets at leisure. Another bonus is that the concert season is in full swing, and the cultural calendar is full. Estonia’s university town, Tartu, has also come back to life with energetic students running through the streets and filling the city’s many pubs. Be sure to check our Tartu pages to see the hippest of the hip places to go in that historic town.
Author Nickname :
Juliette
Author Name : Sarah
Age: 51
Hobbies: romantic novels, cook for my grandsons, write, read, travel when I can.
