We have experienced a very white Boxing Day when an Arctic Vortex hit New York City in 2010, I had a white birthday last year when I frolicked in the snow with my gorgeous daughters on wintery Hampstead Heath, we’ve stood in a totally snow covered environment inside the Arctic Circle. We have watched snowflakes swirl about our faces standing in a pretty Christmas Market in Norway but what I really wanted was the thing that all little Australian girls are wishing for as they are growing up, dreaming for in fact, a White Christmas. With this in mind I planned our Christmas holiday itinerary. When I was five years old I had a best friend, Ingrid. She was strikingly blonde with a tiny, softly spoken mother who spoke to her in what I later found out, was Estonian. At five this was by far the most exotic thing I had ever encountered and I’ve had a fascination for the far off land of Estonia ever since. A quick google search of top ten places to enjoy a White Christmas has Tallinn well placed and at just over two hours flight time from London, it felt like the planets were aligning on my dream Christmas.
Stepping onto the tarmac at Lennart Meri Tallinn Airport we were greeted with a flurry of snow and a check of the forecast had our anticipation factor peaked. We still had a few days until The Actual Day, but hopes were high and temperatures low.
Tallinn is, without doubt, a very pretty city, well Old Town Tallinn. New Town Tallinn is a modern, well-appointed European city with several multi storey malls, a tram network and a McDonald’s on the corner. To our horror, the first thing you encounter as you enter the old tower gates to Old Town is a goddamn Macca’s! Walk further though and you will discover delightful cobbled streets that wind between medieval buildings preserved and restored in a way that is very pleasing. So pleasing in fact that the whole Old Town is listed on the UNESCO World Heritage list. The Old Town Centre is exceptionally complete and well-preserved. It is a combination of an upper town known as Toompea with a castle and cathedral and a lower town which preserves to a remarkable extent the medieval urban fabric of narrow winding streets and fine public and old administrative buildings that survive from the 13th and 14th century. The wall that once ringed the town, remains largely intact and most of the buildings are examples of fine conservation of the original 13th to 16th century structures. This includes the striking Town Hall which forms one side of the main town square, the site of the Tallinn Christmas Market. The centre of the Christmas Market is dominated by an enormous live fir tree, lit and decorated beautifully.
The Market itself is a collection of wooden huts placed in a radiating pattern around the tree and offer a mix of handcrafted items in wood, ceramics and glassware as well as woollen knits and leather craft. Food stalls sell cured meats and local cheeses and hot food is suitably Baltic and delicious, think slow barbequed meat and kransky, fried potato and cabbage incarnations. It’s cold but never fear, Glögi is in abundant supply to warm you through and through. Go for regular at a mere 13%ABV or what soon became our favourite tipple, the local liqueur Vana Tallinn laced version at 21%ABV. Cold? What cold?
Our accommodation was in the attic of a very old building in Old Town that had once housed the blacksmith’s apparently, or so the name implies. The ceiling beams were low and the floorboards wide and wonky. The location gave us easy access to all the Old Town sights and so we spent each day strolling and climbing to check out the gorgeous Cathedrals, churches and twisting cobbled streets. We ate at the market several times and sampled local delights in the restaurants and cafes.
On Christmas Day we treated ourselves to an Olde Hansa experience. This is a medieval building built in 1475 with three floors of sumptuous and surprisingly cosy dining. The rooms are only lit by candles, the meals come straight out of a Medieval Masterchef Cook Book and the genial and multilingual wait staff are suitably attired in authentic 14th century garb from House of Feudal Fashion. I know it sounds a bit kitsch but it was actually really enjoyable. We began with a herb and juniper baked cheese which was awesome. You scrape the tasty, cheesy goodness off the clay dish with a wooden spatula. We simply could not cross the line into barbarity and partake of bear. I know, I can hear everybody groaning! Eat Bear! My totem animal! I have a bear tattoo for god’s sake, he may be a fictional bear, but a bear never-the-less. The wild boar and deer were delicious however and the range of grains and vegetables served with them was amazing in scope and variety. The ales and wines were superb too. Somehow the whole experience just fitted with the feel of the town and we waddled out several hours later more than satisfied.
The whole day had been spent watching the sky and hallucinating tiny white icy specks on my coat sleeve. I lowered the bar to the sighting of at least one single flake any time between midnight on December 25th and midnight December 26th. I got up from the table several times during our dinner to check for any icy precipitation in the square outside the restaurant. Nothing. Cold, snowy looking clouds, a forecast of snow and some earnest promises to the weather goddess of sacrificial vestal virgin offerings but no. Not this time. Just as well Tallinn was so darned gorgeous. We were able to forgive her and continue our investigation of the place. We did discover a famous, and Tallinn’s oldest, café, Maiasmokk Café and what a find that was. Stunning cakes, including the best chocolate creation I think I’ve ever sampled along with fine coffee in a beautiful decorative glass-ceilinged dining room. In a room adjoining the café is a chocolate making concern and a marzipan painting space where all manner of marzipan figures are hand-painted and sold. Too bad I don’t like marzipan but they were pretty cute.
The Old Town medieval walls remain intact and are punctuated at regular intervals with circular stone towers with conical red roofs. I kept expecting Rapunzel to throw down some massive plait, they honestly looked like every fairy tale illustration you’ve ever seen. The shorter ones became her training towers in my commentary. Atop Toompea Hill is the beautiful Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. This orthodox cathedral was built during the ‘Russification’ of Estonia in the late 19th century and was so disliked by the Estonians that they actually scheduled it for demolition in 1924 but it is a very large and very solid structure and they didn’t have the funds. Estonia was part of the USSR (or CCCP) and officially non-religious but after regaining independence in 1991 the church has been meticulously restored.
Inside under the five onion shaped domes are three altars and many icons. Our concept of a church with an altar at one end and rows of pews facing it is challenged in the orthodox churches and cathedrals we have seen. People enter the church at any time to pray to the saints’ icon of their choice. A sung service was being performed during our visit and people came and went as the service proceeded. There are few, if any seats and the people stand to pray. The interior is richly decorated with soaring arches, lots of gilt detailing, enormous chandeliers and painted columns and screens. It is spectacular but photography is forbidden and so we refrained out of respect.
The Soviet rule of Estonia brought large scale industrialisation to the small nation. It also brought mass deportations, collectivised chaos to the agricultural sector and Russian immigration which helped change the ethnic makeup of the country. My friend in kindergarten, Ingrid, her family didn’t just decide to move to the other side of the world, they were escaping an oppressive regime. Estonia finally gained independence in 1991. There remains tension today between the native Estonian and immigrant Russian populations although we saw no evidence personally.
We took a bus to the seaside and happened upon the ruins of Pirita Abbey, built in the early 15th century and sacked and burned in 1575 by Ivan the Terrible and his marauding mates. What is remarkable is that the huge, roofless structure still stands today four and a half centuries later. You could almost imagine that the roof just blew off a couple of years back, the walls are so solid.
We also found a rather grand monument to the loss of a Russian Navy ship that sank in a storm in 1893 with the loss of all 177 crew.
Pirita Beach is a long sandy stretch with a thick pine forest just metres behind the sand. It is very popular with the locals during the summer apparently though all but deserted the day we visited.
We also took a walk to the fabulous art museum called Kumu. Ian and I were reminded of MoNA in Hobart. The building is a stunning modern architectural structure set into the landscape. We were extremely sad to know that it was closed on Boxing Day even though it is normally open on a Tuesday, because we were keen to investigate the interior and exhibitions. Not just an Art Gallery, Kumu hosts films, performances, workshops, special exhibitions, and concerts. Ian and I would consider another trip to Tallinn just to experience the place but we had to content ourselves with the view of the exterior.
We chose not to tour the old KGB prison in Tallinn but we did walk past it, grand and imposing on the outside and hell on earth inside apparently.
Tallinn was a delight. If you have ever visited and seen the Old Town glistening in Christmas Day snow, please don’t tell me, I might weep but we would definitely recommend a visit to experience the authentic old world charm any time of year. And I finally got to see Ingrid’s homeland. Kindergarten was a loooong time ago.
*Fun Estonian Fact – It is mandatory to affix a reflective tag to your outer clothing that hangs at about knee height if you are a pedestrian during night time hours. Not sure how a tag about 5cm x 3cm big is going to make you outstandingly visible to drivers but who knows, maybe it helps.