Fat Margaret

Old Town


Attached to the Great Coast Gate, this rotund 16th-century cannon tower once protected a major entrance to Old Town. It's now one half of the Estonian Maritime Museum, together with the Seaplane Harbour. Traditionally displaying model ships and assorted seagoing artefacts from the Maritime Museum's collection, it underwent extensive redevelopment in 2019.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Old Town attractions

1. St Olaf's Church

0.11 MILES

From 1549 until 1625, when its 159m steeple was struck by lightning and burnt down, this (now Baptist) church was one of the tallest buildings in the…

2. KGB Prison Cells

0.16 MILES

Formerly producing hushed dread in Tallinn's Soviet-era citizens, the KGB headquarters at Pagari 1 is now a historical site, and the Museum of Occupations…

3. Estonian Museum of Contemporary Art

0.19 MILES

Despite its highfalutin name, this grungy old warehouse space is more slapped together than slick. It started as a squat collective in 2006, and…

4. Estonian Museum of Natural History

0.2 MILES

Beginning as the collections of Estonian naturalists in the 19th century, the holdings at this natural history museum exceed 300,000 examples of the…

5. St Nicholas' Orthodox Church

0.25 MILES

Built in 1827 on the site of an earlier Catholic church appearing in 15th-century records, St Nicholas' was the focal point for the Russian traders that…

6. City Museum

0.27 MILES

Tallinn’s City Museum is actually split over seven different sites. This location, its main branch, is set in a 14th-century merchant’s house and traces…

7. Architecture Museum

0.28 MILES

A restored limestone warehouse – the former Rotermann Salt Store – houses this modest museum, displaying building and town models (many of them from…

8. Lower Town Wall

0.29 MILES

Running along the northwestern border of Old Town, the most photogenic stretch of Tallinn's remaining 1.9km of medieval walls connects nine towers,…