Old Town Tallinn with Kadriorg Palace and Pirita (Private)

Meeting by the ship

Meeting by the ship. The start time of the tour is given approximately and will be adjusted depending on your ship arrival time. The exact meeting time will be specified on your confirmation letter.

Transfer to Toompea

A short drive from the port up to the upper town

Toompea and Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

A walk up to Toompea, the limestone hill the Danes fortified in 1219 and the seat of every power that has ruled Estonia since. The castle keeps its medieval towers, among them Tall Hermann, where the national flag is raised at sunrise; the pink baroque wing facing the square houses the Riigikogu, the Estonian parliament. Across from it stands Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, finished in 1900 in a late-19th-century revival style with five onion domes and eleven bells.

Dome Church and viewing platforms

The Dome Church, the oldest church in mainland Estonia, founded in the 13th century and rebuilt many times, with a baroque spire added in 1779. Inside, the walls carry the coats of arms of the Baltic German nobility and the tombs of admirals and governors. From the platforms on the edge of the hill the whole lower town lies below, with its red roofs, spires and wall towers.

Lower Old Town

The descent to the lower town, which merchants rather than nobles built. You see Gothic merchant houses with their hoisting beams still in place, the town wall with the towers that survive from a ring of forty-six, and two great churches: St Nicholas, gutted by Soviet bombing in March 1944 and now a museum holding Bernt Notke's Danse Macabre, and the Holy Spirit Church, whose painted clock of 1684 is the oldest in the city.

Town Hall Square

Town Hall Square, the heart of the town for eight centuries. The Town Hall, completed in 1404, is the only Gothic town hall left standing in northern Europe, and the weathervane of Old Thomas has turned on its spire since 1530. On the corner of the square, the Town Hall Pharmacy was already trading in 1422 and is among the oldest pharmacies in Europe still in business.

St Catherine's Passage

St Catherine's Passage and the Masters' Courtyard, where craftspeople keep open workshops for glass, felt, ceramics and jewellery, and where your guide can point you to the most authentic souvenirs.

Free time for shopping

Half an hour of your own among the stalls and shops of the lower town

Kadriorg Palace

A drive out to Kadriorg, the seaside park Peter the Great laid out in 1718 around a baroque summer palace he built for his wife Catherine, which is what the name means: Catherine's valley. Niccolò Michetti designed it, and its main hall is one of the finest baroque interiors in northern Europe. The palace now holds the foreign art of the Estonian national collection, the modern KUMU museum stands at the far end of the park, and the president of Estonia works next door in a building of 1938.

Song Festival Grounds

The Song Festival Grounds, whose shell-shaped stage of 1960 holds a choir of 15,000. Estonians have gathered here to sing since 1869, and in 1988 up to 300,000 people, a quarter of the nation, came together for the concerts that gave the Singing Revolution its name and led to independence three years later.

Pirita and St Bridget's Convent

The seaside road to Pirita, past the marina built for the sailing events of the 1980 Olympic Games, and a stop at the ruined convent of St Bridget. Founded in 1407 and consecrated in 1436, it was burned down in 1577 during the Livonian War, and its gable wall still stands to full height.

Return to the ship

The drive along the shore ends back at the cruise port