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Tallinn's tiny Old Town, the most impressive in all of the Baltic states, has romantic towers, ankle-wrenching cobblestone streets, cozy nooks, city-wall cafés, and a dozen other attractions—all within 1 square km (½ square mile). In the 1990s, Vanalinn (the lower Old Town)—historically the domain of traders, artisans, and ordinary citizens—sprouted glitzy neon signs in otherwise charming alleys and sights. The stately, sedate Toompea (Upper Town), a hillock that was the site of the original Estonian settlement, is on the burial mound of Kalev, the epic hero of Estonia. Toompea Castle, crowning the hill, is now the seat of the country's parliament and is not open to visitors. Summer visitors can experience the unforgettable white nights, when the sun never completely sets.
The early-20th-century Russian Orthodox Alexander Nevsky Cathedral was originally a symbol of the centuries of Russification endured by Estonia. The cathedral has 11 bells, including the city's largest, which weighs 15 tons.
The 13th-century Church of St. Nicholas, part of the Estonian Art Museum, is famed for its fragment of a treasured frieze, Bernt Notke's (1440–1509) Danse Macabre, a haunting depiction of death.
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