regions | europe Left: View of the Old Town, Tallinn, Estonia
Tallinn for Prague It’s no wonder Prague is so popular. At its heart it’s a city that still echoes to footsteps and conversation rather than to the roar of traffic, and for many westerners, that makes it as fascinating and exotic as a Pacific island. But it’s not the only European city with a medieval sense of scale. Up in the Baltic state of Estonia, Tallinn is still guarded by more than a mile of its 13th-century walls, and offers up castles, churches and a busy warren of cobbled streets. None is so crowded as Prague’s Charles Bridge, even when a cruise ship has docked in the harbor and decanted its passengers. In Tallinn, Scandinavian and Russian influences on the food and culture add to the interest. So too do the affordable restaurant prices — where main courses in fine-dining restaurants rarely breach the €25 barrier. In recent years, the city has also developed several top-notch museums: notably the Vabamu Museum, which tells the long, hard story of the country’s Nazi and Soviet occupations, as well as the sudden and disorienting sense of freedom that came with independence in 1991.