Wandering the Old Town of Tallinn in winter and taking the ferry over to Helsinki
Summary
Tallinn’s UNESCO-world heritage listed Old Town, with its complete 2.5km / 1.5mile medieval defensive wall and various hidden bars and restaurants, is one of the prettiest Old Towns in Europe and, when combined with a short ferry ride over to Helsinki and its harbourside, makes for quite a fun European getaway for a long weekend, even in the winter
The winter weather didn’t spoil things from a Tallinn perspective. If anything it made the Old Town prettier with all the snow and cosy when you go from the freezing dark outside to the warm interiors of the bars and restaurants serving the hot spiced cider. Helsinki, however, felt very cold because the buildings were more spread out and the harbourside was very exposed to the wind. It was still worth heading over from Tallinn as part of the round trip, but I wouldn’t suggest Helsinki in winter on its own
highlights
#1 Views across the spires of the Old Town from the Patkuli Viewing Platform
#2 Wandering through the small alleyways that cross cross Tallinn's Old Town
33 Visiting the harbourside of Helsinki - very briefly in the, literally, Baltic wind!
#4 Visiting Alexander Newski Cathedral in Tallinn
#5 Walking alongside and along Tallinn's medieval defensive city wall
#6 Jumping from the freezing cold into the various restaurants and bars serving the wonderful hot spiced cider
5 High level Travel Tips
1. Stay in the Tallinn Old Town rather than further outside. It may be a little more expensive, but it represents the key atmosphere you want to experience for the trip
2. Be sure to give the local fish breakfasts a good go. We were amazed by just how good they were with the combination of fish, cheese and breads
3. Be sure to try to hot spiced cider. Its an acquired taste but, if you like it, its a gorgeous drink to have when you come in from the cold
4. Getting to Helsinki is super easy. At time of writing, there were 9 daily options to take and take only around 2.5hours
5. Wrap up warmly – it regularly drops to minus 10 Celsius / 50 Fahrenheit
Experiences nearby
The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences
Other Old Town Experiences
Score Detail
Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"? That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others. That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score
This overall experience score is calculated by: take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10). Then convert into a score out of 100
Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique". Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides. So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique". But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience). So, both of these scores are standalone