SteveNot many people have heard of Tallinn, at least not too many of the people I know. As the capital of Estonia, it is one of the oldest old towns we’ve ever been to in Europe. I first travelled to Tallinn in 2008 with a couple of mates for a weekend break. If I recall correctly it was a toss-up between Stockholm and Tallinn, and Tallinn won! (sorry Justin)
Having seen how pretty it was and the many quirks of Tallinn, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit with Amy in December 2018. We both love to explore old towns because we like to soak up a bit of foreign culture where things can be a little different.
At the time of travelling, there was only a handful of direct flights to Tallinn from the UK. I’m writing this in Covid times and flight schedules are all over the place. If memory serves it was a choice between Air Baltic, BA and EasyJet to get to Tallinn.
We went with BA for a few reasons: they flew from Heathrow, they had great flight times, and it meant I’d be earning more Avios and tier points (I’ll probably do a separate post on this one day). Oh, and most importantly I was able to book the flight and hotel combination with BA holidays. This meant it was far cheaper than booking the hotel and flight separately.
The flight left around 11am and the flight time is 3 hours. As we travelled between Christmas and New Year, this meant that Tallinn was in darkness as we landed because the sun set at around 3.30pm. Tallinn’s time zone is 2 hours ahead of the UK.
Tallinn airport (Tallinna Lennujaam) is pretty small when you think it is the main airport for Estonia. This means it is easy to navigate. The airport has signs in English and Estonian everywhere, so there should be no chance of getting lost!
Once we’d collected our suitcases from the carousel, we followed the signs for the tram. Tallinn’s airport is served by buses, taxis and rental cars to get into the city. We chose to take the tram as it was by far the fastest and cheapest way. The signs for the tram took us to a short corridor at the end of the arrivals area that led outside to a tram stop. There is an indoor and outdoor waiting area, and our tram arrived within a few minutes.
I found this page useful when checking out the public transport in Tallinn. It shows bus, trolley and tram routes in Tallinn.
Tram line number 4 serves the airport and runs through the suburbs into the city centre. The tram stop itself is called Lennujaam, handy to know for our return journey! On the departure board, it showed Tondi as the final destination, but we got off at Viru as this was the closest stop to the old town where our hotel was. Our trip took around 20 minutes and cost us €2 each which we paid directly to the tram driver. It is also possible to buy a ticket from a contactless machine inside the airport or on the tram itself for €1.50.
As it was dark it was hard to see much from the tram, although we could make out some grey looking Soviet-era buildings en route. Once we got to our stop at Viru, we saw the edge of the old town and how ancient it appeared. From there, it was a 5-minute walk to our hotel just inside the Viru gates.
Since we travelled, BA has stopped flying to Tallinn (unless you want to swap planes in Helsinki). For our return trip, and we will return, we’ll have to come up with another option.
In conclusion, travelling to Tallinn was dead easy. The BA flight was on one of those new A320 neo’s that BA has. Decent legroom in economy and good service. Having the tram right outside the airport in Tallinn was a bargain too, and made travelling to the centre a doddle. Certainly better than the taxi I took on my first visit. The Russian driver must have thought he was in a Bourne film, but that’s a story for another day!
