Studera utomlands

As mentioned previously, I wanted to visit Tallinn as part of my bucket list. I decided to spend a weekend in the beautiful, Estonian capital city and make the most of the Tallinn card, a pass that allowed me to use to public transportation for free as well as free entrance to all the museums and exhibitions mentioned below. Making the most of the Tallinn card meant that I was waiting in front of a museum before it opened in the morning, being the last one to exit another museum and have no lunch break. Yes, that is right, I had my lunch on Saturday at 7 pm.

My journey started Friday afternoon, after a full day in the lab, when I got on the train from Turku to Helsinki, took the night ferry for two and a half hours to Tallinn and got to my hostel a quarter past midnight. I chose a different style of hostel than normal even though it meant paying a bit more because the experience seemed to be “out of this world” and, in a way, I felt like one of the crew members of a spaceship (no matter if you are a fan of the big franchises such as Stargate, Star Trek or Star Wars, or other newer SF series/movies, you would enjoy the experience).

As I visited ten different attractions, I must list them in an order. I decided to rank them according to my experience and how I felt after the visit, from the best ones being on top of the list. The ranking is purely done according to my own feelings without checking with someone else, thus, most probably, you might rank them in different ways.

1. Seaplane harbour, Estonian maritime museum

The “Seaplane harbour” museum is an amazing museum, designed on three plans: underwater, surface and air. It is an impressing museum that actually “immerses” you into the maritime theme. What’s the aspect that really made me consider this museum as the best place I visited in Tallinn? Well, it is the fact that it has a full submarine (more or less functional) inside it. And yes, you can actually get onboard the “Lembit” submarine and explore it at your own pace (not to mention the really cool selfies you can take). My advice to you is that, if you have never been onboard a submarine (which was also my case), I really urge you to visit this museum.

2. House of Peter the Great

The “House of Peter the Great” is the oldest museum in Tallinn dating back to 1806. It is the actual house in which the Russian tsar, Peter I the Great, lived with his wife, Catherine I while waiting for the building of the Kadriorg palace. They did not manage to move into the palace because they both died before the completion of the palace. The museum has on display the original furniture and other objects that belonged to Peter I. Why is this small museum the second place on my list? Well, it is (again) about the good experience that I had while visiting the museum. The museum’s ticket seller was also the guide of the museum, and I did have a free (personal) tour guide around the museum, and she told me the stories of the exhibits.

3. Energy Discovery Center

The “Energy Discovery Center” is a museum housed inside an old powerplant that has the main theme the energy production and other physical phenomena. Most of the exhibits are interactive ones, thus you can “play” around and see, in practice, all the phenomena that you learned in school. Because of this, the museum is really family friendly so expect to see a lot of parents with children and some parts of the museum might become overcrowded. Besides the interactive exhibits, at different times, there are also some short movie projections and demonstrations. I was fortunate enough to visit the museum when they “created” artificial lightning in the same manner as Nikola Tesla. Why is this museum the third one on my list? The reason is the fact that it made me feel like a child, learning about science and physics for the first time.

Check the second part of my blog “A 10/10 weekend in Tallinn” to find out more about the things that I visited during the 40 hours weekend spent in Tallinn.