The Bastion Passages
A kilometre under the city, cut by the Swedes.
Diego Delso — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Eric Fischer — CC BY 2.0 · Eric Fischer — CC BY 2.0 · Kynnap — CC BY-SA 4.0
An artillery tower called "Peep into the Kitchen": Kiek in de Kök was built in 1475 with walls four metres thick over six storeys, and the soldiers named it so because from the top they could see down the chimneys and into the kitchens of the town below. Cannonballs from Ivan the Terrible's siege of 1577 are still lodged in its wall where they struck. Inside is the fortifications museum over six floors: weapons, armour and the history of Tallinn's walls, once among northern Europe's strongest (two and a half kilometres and twenty towers still stand). The best-known part is underground: the Bastion Passages the Swedes cut in the seventeenth century to move troops and ammunition unseen beneath the ramparts, used as shelters in the Second World War, considered as nuclear bunkers in the Cold War, and inhabited by homeless people and alternative youth in the 1990s — a guided tour walks a kilometre beneath the city at a constant temperature.
A kilometre under the city, cut by the Swedes.
'Peep into the Kitchen' — from its height over the houses.
Komandandi tee 2, Tallinn
The Danish King's GardenA small garden on the slope below Toompea hill, hemmed in by the city wall and i1 minute walk4.8
War of Independence Victory ColumnAn illuminated glass column about twenty-three metres high at one end of Freedom2 minutes walk4.3
St Nicholas' Church (Niguliste)A Gothic church that became a museum because it could no longer be prayed in: Ni2 minutes walk4.5
Alexander Nevsky CathedralFive black-and-gold onion domes directly facing parliament: the Russian Orthodox2 minutes walk4.7
Freedom SquareA large open square at the southern edge of the old town, entirely redesigned in2 minutes walk4.7Yes from about six: the passages are wide and lit and the tour interactive, but it is an hour underground — anyone uneasy with that can stick to the tower.