My last Tallinn post will be about two of the locations where we had a great view over Tallinn - the TV Tower and the Castle Viewing platform.
The TV tower in Tallinn was built from 1975-1980 to provide better communications for the Moscow Summer Olympics Regatta (when Moscow hosted the Summer Olympics they decided to host the regattas in Estonia). At 315m tall it is the tallest building in Tallinn. The viewing tower is located at 170m on the 21st floor.
In 1991 the tower was attacked by soviet forces after it tried to present free media during the battle for Estonia Independence. The forces tried to storm the tower, but the radio operators at the top of the tower blocked the elevators open with a matchbox to prevent it from going down. Because of this the soviets needed to climb 1000 steps. When they reached the top and threatened to use explosives to blow down the doors, the defenders threatened to used the Halon firefighting system to asphyxiate everyone in the tower. It's not known (or more likely not widely told) if this was a bluff or not, but it bought the defenders enough time for Moscow to back down.
A view looking up at the tower to give an idea of the height:
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| Tallinn TV Tower |
The kids took turns skydiving from the tower:
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| Alana and Tom |
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| Alana and Cam |
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| Cam and Tom |
You can tell that they are really skydiving and not just putting their heads in holes in a poster because of the different angles of the tower in the shots.... really. Just ignore the fact their poses would result in broken necks, or the light coming from behind their heads...
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| The kids loved these, Kris not so much.. They were holes that allowed you to see all 170m to the ground |
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| Not far down... |
Here are some views shots the viewing platform:
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| Church |
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| Botanic Gardens |
Direction arrows - we're only 15,232km from Canberra!
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| To Canberra! (on a side note, I realized here its pretty odd - our kids have been to the capitals of Estonia, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway but never of Australia....) |
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| 377m from Stockholm |
On our last night in Tallinn, our friends offered to look after the kids so Kris and I could have a walk around by ourselves. We started off about 10pm but it was still very light. We headed to the Toompea Castle (Everywhere in Old Town is easily within walking distance) and we were lucky enough to catch the sunset from the viewing platform:
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| There was lots of glare initially |
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| Oww my eyes - but I'm glad we toughed it out |
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| Sunset over Tallinn |
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| There were some beautiful reds and oranges |
I loved the views over the Old Town and the walls. In the next few shots you can see several of the towers as well as the churches:
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| Tallinn Old Town |
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| Sunsetting over Tallinn |
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| Tallinn old town |
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| City walls |
The sunset on the church was also very impressive:
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| Sunset on the church |
We then walked down to the lookout by Neitstorn and Kiek in de Kok and looked out over across old town to the newer areas.
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| The golden glow from the glass skyscraper was impressive |
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| As an aside - I did like this house with a passage built into it |
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| The moon over the city walls |
The next morning we had a sleep-in and then packed our bags before hopping on the ferry to Stockholm. We boarded around 2pm and were to arrive in Stockholm around 9:30am the next day.
We caught the M/S Gabriella again.
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| Saying goodbye to Tallinn - TV tower in the distance |
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| View of Tallinn from the sea |
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| Tallinn docks and another Viking Lines ferry |
Once we were out of sight of Tallinn we headed down to the coffee shop that had a play area. The kids invented a cool game with some other kids - one would sit on the slide and the others would fill it with balls, then they would slide down through it:
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| The ball pit and slide game |
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| Having fun |
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| Good non-violent fun? |
and we met the Viking Lines mascot, who had to signal for help to get Tomas to release him:
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| Cuddles |
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| On top of the world |
Next stop - Stockholm.
