Press-Telegram: Tallinn Keeps Visitors Busy

From May to September every year, cruise ships from at least a half-dozen lines slip out of ports in Western Europe and head for such familiar Baltic cities as Stockholm, Copenhagen, Helsinki and St. Petersburg. Many continue on for a day in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia.

It almost seems like an afterthought or a throw-in in a sports trade; a name that could be forgotten as soon as it is introduced. Tallinn, however, is more than that.

It may be that Estonia isn't much noticed in the West because - along with neighboring Latvia and Lithuania - it was swallowed up by the Soviet Union in 1944 and all but forgotten outside the Eastern Bloc nations. But when the Soviet Union collapsed two decades ago, all three nations regained their independence and today are members of the European Union.

Tallinn is not a "must-see" city the way London, Paris and Rome are. It could be more accurately thought of as an "ought-to-see" city, and there is easily enough to keep a visitor busy for three or four days.

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