NB! You can choose these lines with Tallinn Card for your free tour.     Summer 2015 brochure: 2015SummerHopon_brochure_495x210mm_20150415

Tallinn’s old town, a UNESCO world heritage site, is considered to be the best-preserved medieval town in Northern Europe. Within these fortified walls, centuries old buildings with their red tile roofs, hidden courtyards and winding cobblestone streets exhibit a unique charm that is hard to resist. Consider your guide to be a local friend who will pace your tour to suit your comfort and interests. Our excursions are not bound by a set agenda and so we encourage you to ask questions to get the most from your discovery experience. Your introduction to the old town begins with a brief history of Estonia and Tallinn and continues with visits to the most interesting and significant sites of Lower and Upper Old Town, each with their own story to tell. Admire the picturesque Lower Town, the fortified medieval Town Wall with many towers, the impressive over 600 year old Gothic Town Hall, the Town Hall Square and Town Council Pharmacy, which is the oldest continuously functioning pharmacies in the Europe. The path will bring you to the Upper Town, known as Toompea. Here you can take a look at the elaborately decorated Alexander Nevsky Cathedral – the largest Orthodox church in the city, the Houses of Estonian Parliament and one of the oldest churches in Estonia the Dome Church. Experience the magnificent panoramic views from Toompea Hills over the Lower Town and the rest of the city of Tallinn. Your interactive journey through Tallinn’s old town is designed to present you with a brief and yet interesting overview of our history, culture and architecture. To give you the complete picture, we not only talk about the buildings but also tell you about the people that lived here in the past and about present day life in Estonia.

Estonian National Museum, established in 1909 in Tartu, said in 1913 that establishing an open air museum was also its task. Estonian intellectuals got the idea from visiting the open air museums in Scandinavia and Finland (in Sweden the open air museum Skansen was established in 1891, in Norway in 1897, in Denmark in 1901, in Finland Seurasaari open air museum was established in 1909). The First World War hindered the museum from taking more serious steps. As from 1921, the resources of Estonian National Museum were spent on fitting out the Raadi Castle, and increasing economic difficulties did not enable to begin with the costly undertaking – the construction of the open air museum. In years 1925 – 1931, the Estonian Open Air Museum Association was active in Tallinn, and setting up the museum in the capital was under discussion. In 1920s and 1930s, the ethnographers of the Estonian National Museum I. Manninen, F. Linnus and G. Ränk promoted and planned the future exposition of the Open Air Museum. The Pirita park-museum should have started its work on 1 July 1941 but the war began. In 1950, the Union of Architects with K. Tihane, A. Kasper, H. Armani, G. Jommi and others raised the issue of setting up an open air museum. More specific preparation activities started in 1956, this time in the Ministry of Culture. Additionally to the above-mentioned names, architects F. Tomps and I. Sagur, historians H. Moora, G. Troska, A. Viires, O. Korzjukov were also active in the organizing committees. The museum was founded on 22 May 1957, it started its activity the same year on 1 June. In July, the museum got a plot of 66 ha near Tallinn, on the coast of Kopli Bay, in the area of Rocca al Mare summer manor, which was established in 19 century. The museum under construction was opened for the visitors in August 1964. By today, the territory of the museum is 72.22 and there are 74 exposed buildings.