A City Imbued with Stories: Day 3
Time visited: September 2022
Time spent: Three nights
Day 3
We have no shame in admitting that our third and final day in Tallinn also started at Café Maiasmokk!
And then we ventured out of Old Town - we headed to Linnahall. We'd watched a few videos of our trusted vloggers including Rachel and Nick and were ready to experience the Linnahall for ourselves. It was about a kilometre from the café and required us to cross what seemed to be the main thoroughfare dividing Old and New Tallinn. We already knew that Linnahall meant City Hall and that it was built for the sailing events of the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics, but we still had questions about its future. They were answered by an information board by the footpath leading to the Linnahall: "Linnahall will be developed into an international conference and concert centre with a harbour, hotel, restaurants and cafés." But after seeing the vast and abandoned place, I somehow didn't want it to be fixed up - I didn't want it to lose its enigma!
We climbed a long flight of stairs to reach an enormous and open windswept platform. The place was clearly in a state of disrepair, but it had a strange charm that we couldn't ignore. More stairs led to the highest part of the complex, but all except one were fenced off. The concert hall also was off limits.
After a long walk around this expansive and exposed space overlooking the Baltic Sea, we left Linnahall behind. And within minutes we were walking past these newly built flats. The contrast was stark.
From Linnahall, the Seaplane Harbour is 1.7 kilometres. As we left the main road to walk on a path running parallel to the Baltic Sea, a massive structure appeared on our left. We wondered what it was! It was only when we were walking back to Old Town, we saw the front of the building. It was called Patarei Merekindlus. We looked it up after returning to Melbourne! It was a Russian prison. This enormous space is undergoing renovation and will reopen in 2026 as a community hub and trade centre.

We arrived at the Seaplane Harbour and were instantly struck by its scale. The maritime museum is in a gigantic aeroplane hanger with three distinctive domes. We read that the domes were the first of their size to be made with reinforced concrete without any internal support, but it was only when we stepped inside its cavernous belly that we truly appreciated this architectural wonder.

The exhibits were much more than what we expected for a €30 family ticket, but the visit was made even more meaningful by the audio guide. An additional €2 gives a wonderful account of the museum's seafaring vessels ranging from the remains of a Viking ship to the Estonian dugout aspen boat to Estonian polar explorer Timo Palo's kayak. The guide is automatic - i.e. the audio description begins when one approaches an exhibit - and well-paced.

Since the hanger was where seaplanes used to hang (pardon the pun!) until the Second World War, it made complete sense for a full-size replica of the Short 184 to be housed there, literally hanging from the ceiling! The Short 184 was the first-ever aircraft to launch a torpedo.
The star of the museum though was Submarine Lambit. Built in 1936, this Estonian submarine was retired in 2011 - yes, after 75 years of service! Walking through the cramped quarters of the submarine was humbling.
Before leaving the museum, we did one fun thing! We tried on old Estonian military uniforms! There are no shareable photos, unfortunately, to show how much fun we had.
We walked back to Old Town and ate at - no prizes for guessing - Café Maiasmokk! The main reason we returned there, instead of wandering the streets or venturing far, was because we had a much-awaited experience booked at the café for 2:00 pm - a marzipan painting workshop.

We came to know about the workshop from the Tallinn episode of Travel Man. We even wondered if the same marzipan artist would be our instructor! But no, ours was Heli, and she was amazing! A table was reserved for us by the window in the Marzipan Room. There were three marzipan figurines on thick cards - two of cats and one of a rabbit, edible colours on a palette - three primary and one secondary, water in three cups, paintbrushes of various thicknesses in a holder, and even three pieces of folded paper towel to soak excess water from the paintbrushes! Just looking at the table was meditative.
Rakesh painted the rabbit - the orangest rabbit there is; I painted the cat with alien eyes - Heli said my brush strokes were the best; and ShNaajh painted the other cat! Her cat had much nicer eyes - they were somewhere between blue and green. Some of you may have read about ShNaajh's memory of this mindful marzipan workshop.
We left our creations with Heli so they could be glazed and returned to us in little transparent bags sealed with Café Maiasmokk stickers.
Just across the street from Café Maiasmokk was the last place we visited in Tallinn: the Great Guild Hall of Estonian History Museum.
There were many interesting objects but two exhibits stood out for me. The first one was this excavated soup bowl. I had my mushroom soup at Olde Hansa in a similar bowl. And the second one was this parka. It was sewn from horizontal strips of cleaned animal gut! 'New parkas were waterproof and elastic like modern raincoats. They had a wide cut because they were worn on top of other clothes.' My mind was blown!
We collected our marzipan creations and returned to our medieval Airbnb. The dinner of boiled frankfurts and scrambled eggs was as bland as it sounds and looks, but we shared two marvellous slices of cake from you-know-where for dessert.
As we finished packing and Rakesh sat down to complete online check-in for our flight to Stockholm, we knew saying goodbye to Tallinn would be hard. And it was.
Hello, thank you for sheering-lovely to read and I showed Heli as well! Have a happy year!
-Mirell, the manager, Maiasmokk Kohvik
What a beautiful series of posts ... brought back many lovely memories.
Lovely story of Estonia and the marzipan cats and bunny! Thank you for sharing.
-Geetha
An excellent piece of writing.
-Dewan
Inspiring post.
-Nhai