Helsinki and Tallinn are two great capitals in Northern Europe. Just 50 miles and a two-hour ferry ride apart, these two cities – facing each other across the Baltic Sea from their respective count…
Helsinki and Tallinn are two great capitals in Northern Europe. Just 50 miles and a two-hour ferry ride apart, these two cities – facing each other across the Baltic Sea from their respective countries of Finland and Estonia – are not only neighbors, but soul sisters.
In spite of its Swedish roots, old Helsinki feels Russian. When the Russians took over Finland in 1809, they moved the capital to Helsinki and hired German architect Carl Ludvig Engel to model the city after their capital, St. Petersburg. This resulted in fine Neoclassical squares and stone buildings with white trim and columns.
From Helsinki’s harbor, ferries zip across the Baltic to Tallinn. The trip is so easy that Finns routinely visit Tallinn to eat, drink, and shop more cheaply than at home. On summer weekends, the city virtually becomes a Finnish nightclub. Like many tourist zones, Tallinn’s is a commercial gauntlet, with medieval theme restaurants and enthusiastic hawkers of ye olde taste treats. But just a couple of blocks away is, for me, the real attraction of Tallinn, where still-ramshackle courtyards host inviting cafés and bistros serve organic cuisine in a chic patina of old-world-meets-new.
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