Today we are visiting the town of Tallinn in Estonia. Tallinn is known for its old city area, still resembling a walled medieval town from the past. The port was within walking distance to the old town area, and the weather this morning was very sunny.
Deserted Morning Streets in Tallinn
We got off the ship about 8:00 AM and walked to the main gate entrance to the old town area. Since it was Sunday, there were hardly any Estonians out and about at this time of day, we mostly saw fellow ship’s passengers.
The plan for the morning was to locate the Catholic Church and to attend Mass at 10:00 AM. We had the directions and address thanks to Google, and had obtained a map of the old town area from the Information Booth set up at the cruise terminal when we left the ship. The map was quite small, and did not really show all of the street names, so it took us a little while to figure out our location and then the direction to go to get to the church from the main entrance to the town.
When we arrived at the address, it did not look like there was a church there at all, which was what I had also seen from Google Street View before we had left home. We wandered around to the side of the gated entrance, thinking we would possibly see it from another side, but no luck. We walked around some more, trying to confirm we had the correct number to the building, we knew we were on the correct street. Again, no luck.
There was a large banner hanging across the road from the buildings down the street, and on the banner was some information and a picture of Pope Francis. Stephanie thought that maybe this had something to do with the church, and sure enough, there was another small access gate to a courtyard area near the sign, and there was the church inside. Many of the building are behind gates that are accesses through a wall into a courtyard, but you can’t see the building from out on the street because of the high walls.
Catholic Church in Tallinn
We confirmed that there was a Mass at 10:00 A.M., and we had about an hour to wait until it began. We strolled up a few streets looking at the colorful buildings before heading back to the church for Mass. It was an interesting church inside, and most of the people coming to Mass were older women, at least until right before Mass started, when a few more men showed up. There were no traditional kneelers, but slanted wooden kneelers that would only let you kneel with your backside on the pew. They were slanted for that purpose, and it was impossible to kneel straight up. We knew the 10:00 A.M. Mass was in Polish, and had seen that the next one was in Estonian. The only English Mass was last night’s Saturday Vigil Mass.
Town Hall Square in Tallinn
As is usual, most of the Mass was the same as ours at home, but there are always slight differences, mostly on when everyone kneels. There was a choir and the priest did a lot of the Mass via chanting. It was nice, but of course, we do not know any Polish, so it was a little different.
When Mass was over, we headed to some of the more interesting sights in the city, following some guided paths in our Rick Steve’s book that was loaded onto our Kindle. The town hall square was first on the list. There was a pharmacy there that is the oldest continuously running pharmacy in Europe, having been started in 1422.
Russian Orthodox Church in Tallinn
We headed to the upper town, which was inside of a different perimeter wall than the lower town. Once we got up to the highest part of the city, we visited the Russian Orthodox church that had been built when Estonia was part of the Soviet Union. It was really beautiful inside, but we were not allowed to take any photos. There was also a Lutheran Church in the upper town, but it was closed for services.
Tallinn From The Upper Town Overlook
By this time, we had lost all of our early morning sunshine, and it was really getting cloudy. There were some scenic overlooks to the lower town, and we could see that rain was approaching, and within a few minutes, it was starting to drizzle. Of course, since it had been so sunny in the morning, and there had been no forecast for rain today, we were without any umbrellas or rain jackets. We spent about 45 minutes under a covered entrance, and in a couple of souvenir shops, trying to stay out of the rain. We even started to look to see if we could find a cheap umbrella in the shops, and about the time we found a shop selling them, but for an exorbitant price, the rain ceased, and we were saved from makin that purchase. It was still very cloudy, but the sunshine did eventually come out after about another hour or so.
Main Gate Into Tallinn
We did a little more shopping, and then walked back to the lower town, out of the main gate entrance, and back to the ship. It was a fairly short port stop, the all aboard time for today was 4:30 PM, and we had seen everything noteworthy in Tallinn.
We went to the buffet for dinner, and did not stay out late or have many adult beverages since we are having to get up at about 5:15 AM tomorrow to go through immigration for our visit to St. Petersburg, Russia, the highlight of our trip.
Regal Princess in Tallinn