Aegna Island
An hour’s boat ride (May–Sept Mon & Wed–Fri 2 daily, Sat & Sun 3 daily; double-check timetable with tourist office; €6 return) from Pirita harbour (bus #1, #34 or #38 from the underground stop at the Viru Centre), tiny peaceful Aegna is an excellent day-trip destination. Its forest-covered interior and clean beaches attract locals who camp here in the summer.
Church of the Holy Ghost and St Nicholas’s Church
The fourteenth-century Church of the Holy Ghost (Puhä Vaimu kirik; Mon-Sat: May-Sept 9am-6pm; Oct- April 10am-3pm; €1) on Pühavaimu is the city’s oldest church, a small Gothic building with stuccoed limestone walls, stepped gables, carved wooden interior, a tall, verdigris-coated spire and an ornate clock from 1680 – the oldest in Tallinn.
Contrasting sharply is the late Gothic St Nicholas’s Church (Niguliste kirik; Tues–Sun 10am–5pm; museum €5), southwest of Raekoja plats. Dating back to the 1820s and rebuilt after being mostly destroyed in a 1944 Soviet air raid, the church now serves as a museum of church art, including medieval winged altars and the haunting Danse Macabre (“Dance With Death”) by Bernt Notke. It also hosts free organ recitals (Sat & Sun 4pm).
Estonia’s Song Festival
The Lauluväljak at Narva maantee 95 (wwww.lauluvaljak.ee), just to the northeast of Kadriorg Park, is a vast amphitheatre which is the venue for Estonia’s Song Festivals. These gatherings, featuring a 25-thousand-strong choir are held every five years, and have been an important form of national expression since the first all-Estonia Song Festival held in Tartu in 1869. The grounds were filled to their 45,000-person capacity in summer 1988 when people assembled here spontaneously to sing patriotic songs- in protest against Soviet rule, in what became known as the “Singing Revolution”. The next Song Festival is in July 2019.
Kadriorg Park
Kadriorg Park, a heavily wooded area 2km east of the Old Town along Narva maantee, was laid out according to the instructions of Russian tsar Peter the Great. The main entrance to the park is at the junction of Weizenbergi tänav and J. Poska (tram #1 or #3 from Viru väljak). Weizenbergi cuts through the park, running straight past Kadriorg Palace, a Baroque residence designed by the Italian architect Niccolò Michetti, which Peter had built for his wife Catherine. The palace houses the Kadriorg Art Museum (May–Sept Tues & Thurs–Sun 10am–5pm, Wed 10am–8pm; Oct–April closed Tues; €5.50), with a fine collection of Dutch and Russian paintings.
Estonia's Song Festival
The Lauluväljak at Narva maantee 95, just to the northeast of Kadriorg Park, is a vast amphitheatre which is the venue for Estonia’s Song Festivals. These gatherings, featuring a 25,000-strong choir, are held every five years, and have been an important form of national expression since the first all-Estonia Song Festival held in Tartu in 1869. The grounds were filled to their 45,000-person capacity in summer 1988 when people assembled here spontaneously to sing patriotic songs in protest against Soviet rule, in what became known as the “Singing Revolution”. The next Song Festival is in July 2019.
KUMU
Marking the eastern end of Kadriorg Park is the immense, futuristic-looking KUMU (April-Sept Tues & Thurs–Sun 11am–6pm, Wed 11am–8pm; Oct–April closed Tues; €6), a must-see for anyone interested in twentieth century Estonian art. It’s certainly a wide-ranging collection: surrealism, pop art and abstraction flourished during the Soviet period, despite official hostility to such modernist excesses.