Towers and Spires

Wednesday, August 12, 2026

Today we are visiting the third Baltic state, Estonia. Estonia, with a population around 1,363,000, is a developed country with an advanced economy and a highly educated population. (Did you know that Skype was developed in Estonia?) Estonia’s capital is Tallinn (rhymes with Stalin), with a population of roughly 450,000. The written history of Tallin can be traced back to 1219.

Estonian is the official language, but English seems to be widely spoken. Estonian is part of the Finno-Ugric language family, and is therefore not an Indo-European language, like the Romance, Germanic, Slavic, and Baltic languages.

We visited Tallinn several years ago and took a tour, so we decided not to take one this time. We followed Rick Steves’ plan for a walk through the Old Town.

Our walk started at Fat Margaret.

Can you find the Fat Margaret?

Fat Margaret is the name of the tower that guarded the entry gate to the Old Town during the Hanseatic era, and perhaps earlier. There is a small cafe on the roof, and you can enjoy the view. There is also supposed to be a geocache up there, but I was unable to find it. 

View from the top of Fat Margaret. The Gothic tower on the right is the imposing
spire of St. Olav’s Church.

View from the top of Fat Margaret. Sapphire Princess is on the right.

Inside the tower you will find a very well-curated museum. We weren’t planning to visit the museum, but we were drawn in by the nautical theme of the exhibits. The first level had a display reminiscent of the fabulous Vasa Museum in Stockholm. An ancient cargo vessel had been discovered and carefully excavated. Many artifacts were found with the boat and were remarkably well preserved.

The boat was a type called a “cog” and was used by traders to transport goods in the Baltic region.The boat was shipwrecked in a location that was under water at the time, but is now on dry land. The wreck was discovered in Tallinn in 2015 during construction work, and was named “Peeter’s Cog.”

It was carefully excavated and preserved, and now is on display in the museum. Scientists used dendrology to date the wreck. Dendrology is the study of tree rings in the wood. They found that the trees used to make the wood for Peeter’s Cog were cut down afetr 1296 in an area that is now part of Poland.

Models of the wreck and an intact cog

Other levels of the museum had displays of sailing ships from later periods, early steamboats, and motorized vessels. The models were very detailed and fun to look at.

Below is a model of the passenger ferry MS Estonia, operated by EstLine. In September 1994, this ship sank in the Baltic Sea, en route from Talinn to Stockholm, during a severe storm. Of the 989 people on board, 852 died - making it the deadliest peacetime shipwreck in European waters. As a result of this disaster, new international safety regulations were adopted.

MS Estonia

After an hour or more at Fat Margaret, we strolled along Pikk Street, a medieval market street. We passed old warehouses with cranes on the gables, and guild halls such as the Brotherhood of the Blackheads and the Great Guild Hall.

Typical warehouses with cranes on the gables

In medieval times, German nobles dominated the Estonian economy. The leading German nobles were part of the Great Guild. Single German men belonged to the Brotherhood of the Black Heads.

The Great Guild Hall

The Brotherhood of the Black Heads

Town Hall Square (Raekoja Plats) and Tallinn Town Hall (Raekoda).
St. Nicholas Church on the right, in background

Riga doesn’t have a monopoly on Art Nouveau

We found a shop that sold beautiful buttons made from various local woods

Just look at these colorful fabrics from different regions of Estonia!

We had lunch at a place on the Town Hall Square called Kaerajaan, which describes its food as “modern Estonian cuisine.” The food was outstanding. I had a goat cheese salad that was perfect in every respect, from the dressing to the cheese. Ken loved his duck breast salad. I was also fascinated by the clever little homemade napkin rings they had. They were made from a traditional Estonian folk fabric. I am going to try to make some when I get home.

Duck Breast Salad

Goat Cheese Salad

We didn’t have time to visit the upper part of Old Town or any new parts of Tallinn, but we really enjoyed this clean, charming, pleasantly quirky Old Town. It was fun and relaxing to explore the lovely shops and interesting nooks and crannies without being on someone else’s schedule. 

On the way back to the ship we encountered St. Catherine’s Passage with five curious medieval stone arches.

I really liked Tallinn. The shops were inviting and sold interesting locally-produced crafts at reasonable prices. The architecture is varied and lends so much character to the Old Town. The Old Town is bustling, but not overcrowded. There is so much history in the old walls, the defensive towers, and the soaring church spires.

The other noteworthy experience today was the European Eclipse. We were not in the zone of totality, but we were in the zone of about 90%. The eclipse here occurred just before sunset, which means the sun was very low on the horizon, which means you don’t get a sore neck from watching the eclipse. 

In case you are wondering, yes, we did have some of those cheesy cardboard eclipse glasses, and they did meet the proper safety standards of some institute. I ordered them from Amazon earlier this summer. We received several warnings from Princess about the danger of looking at the eclipse without eclipse glasses and a multi-page letter came to our room about eclipse safety. Te letter also explained how to photograph the eclipse. You needed special lenses for your camera, which we did not have, so we didn’t even try. Princess also arranged to live-stream a special broadcast from NASA on the ship’s TV system, so we watched part of the eclipse in our stateroom. The NASA program was very well done. As sunset approached, we went up to one of the top decks to see the eclipse at its maximum point, along with the sunset. It was very cool, but it was over so quickly. 

The Perseid meteor shower was going to be visible in the middle of the night, so we did not try to see that also.It was a long day.

Today’s fabric is packing fabric. In the Middle Ages, goods were wrapped in coarse, durable material to protect them during shipment. Typical fibers used in this region would have been flax, wool, or goat hair. 

I encountered an exhibit in the Fat Margaret museum which included a length of packing material found with the wreck of Peeter’s Cog, described above. I believe the primary fiber in this piece is goat hair. The fabric is estimated to be around 700 years old. Amazing!