Tallinn Town Wall and Towers: Kiek in de Kök, Bastion Passages, Hellemann Tower and the Wall Walks

💡 The Short Version: About 1.85 km of wall and 26 towers survive from Tallinn’s medieval fortifications. The main visitor site is the Kiek in de Kök Fortifications Museum on Komandandi tee (€16 for the four towers plus the underground Bastion Passages, €12 for the towers only, €10 for the passages only). You can also walk the wall at Hellemann Tower on Müürivahe and at the Nun’s, Sauna and Golden Foot towers on Väike-Kloostri. All three are free with the Tallinn Card. Or book a tour: a medieval walking tour of the UNESCO-listed Old Townad starts at the Town Hall and walks the wall, the towers and Toompea with a guide.

⚠️ Winter closing days. Kiek in de Kök is closed on Mondays from October to April. Hellemann Tower is closed on Tuesdays from 15 October to 15 April. The Nun’s Tower walk is closed on Tuesdays all year, and from November to February it opens Friday to Monday only.

Tallinn’s medieval defence ring

Tallinn’s town wall (Tallinna linnamüür) is built of limestone, and its oldest surviving sections date from the 13th century. It was extended and strengthened over the following three centuries until it ringed the whole Lower Town. More than half of it still stands: 1.85 kilometres of wall and 26 towers. The Old Town became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. You can see the fortifications in three ways:

1. Museum complex: Kiek in de Kök Fortifications Museum, which links four medieval towers with underground bastion tunnels.
2. Wall walks: Hellemann Tower and the Nun’s Tower (Nunnatorn), each with a walkway along the top of the wall.
3. Free street-level sights: the Viru Gate (Viru värav) towers and the Danish King’s Garden (Taani kuninga aed), plus Fat Margaret at the Great Coastal Gate, which is a ticketed museum.

Kiek in de Kök cannon tower. Photo: Dudva, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Tickets and opening hours

Kiek in de Kök tickets are sold at the museum desk at Komandandi tee 2. Hellemann Tower and the Nun’s Tower walk have their own tickets, which are not covered by it.

• Concessions: pupils, students, pensioners and people with partial work capacity.
• Family ticket: up to two adults and their children aged 19 and under.
• Free: children up to 6, and Tallinn Card holders (Kiek in de Kök towers and passages, Hellemann Tower and the Nun’s Tower walk).
• Accessibility: the towers and passages cannot be visited by wheelchair. The steps are steep and uneven.

Tours worth paying for

The museum tickets above are the cheaper way to get inside the towers. A walking tour adds a guide for the Old Town streets and the wall seen from outside.

Medieval walking tour of the UNESCO-listed Old Town

From €36 · 4.8 stars from 363 reviews · 2 hours · small group, up to 10

The Tallinn: Medieval Walking Tour of the UNESCO-Listed Old Townad starts at the Town Hall and walks past the fortress walls and towers, then up to the Upper Town and Toompea Castle. It ends at the viewpoints, or back at the Town Hall Square if you prefer.

Guided Old Town historical walking tour

From €35 · 4.9 stars from 1,616 reviews · 2 hours · small group

The Tallinn: Guided Old Town Historical Walking Tourad meets under the Town Hall clock and covers the Town Hall, the Danish King’s Garden, Toompea Castle and Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, with stops at the Kohtuotsa and Patkuli viewpoints. Children under 12 go free.

Maiden’s Tower by the Danish King’s Garden. Photo: Jaan Künnap, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Kiek in de Kök Fortifications Museum

The municipal museum at Komandandi tee 2 links four towers along the slope between Toompea and Freedom Square:

1. Kiek in de Kök artillery tower: Finished in 1483, this round cannon tower is 38 metres high. Its Low German name means “Peep into the Kitchen”: from the upper floors, gunners could see down into the kitchens of the Lower Town. The permanent exhibition is on its six floors. Cannonballs fired in the 1577 siege by Ivan the Terrible’s army are still embedded in the outer walls, and the tower’s present name is first recorded in accounts of that siege.
2. Maiden’s Tower (Neitsitorn): The only square regular tower on Tallinn’s wall, built around the mid-14th century. It was later converted into flats with artists’ studios, restored as a defence tower in 1980 and turned into a popular café. Today it holds exhibitions on the studio years and the café years, and the café is open daily from May to September and at weekends from October to April.
3. Stable Tower (Tallitorn): The next tower along the wall from the Maiden’s Tower.
4. Short Leg Gate Tower (Lühikese jala väravatorn): Built in 1454 over the stairway that links Toompea and the Lower Town. It holds changing exhibitions.

The Maiden’s Tower and the wall walk are entered through the Kiek in de Kök cannon tower.

The Bastion Passages (Bastionikäigud)

Beneath the earthworks of the Swedish and Ingrian bastions below Toompea runs a network of tunnels built in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, so soldiers and supplies could move out of sight of enemy guns. The Bastion Passages were later used as storerooms and as an air-raid shelter, and in the 1990s homeless people sheltered in them.

Today the passages hold a multimedia exhibition on how Tallinn grew and how its fortifications were defended. You walk them on your own with the museum’s free audio guide, which you download to your phone in advance (App Store or Google Play). The tunnels stay at +10 to +12°C all year, so bring a jacket in summer. The museum advises against the passages for children under 7 and for anyone afraid of enclosed spaces.

The last section houses the Carved Stone Museum (Raidkivimuuseum), a collection of more than 200 carved stones and fragments from Tallinn buildings, laid out in four themed rooms.

Fat Margaret at the Great Coastal Gate. Photo: Pjotr Mahhonin, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Other wall sections and gate towers

Three more sections of the wall can be visited or walked:

Hellemann Tower and wall walk

Hellemann Tower stands at the end of Müürivahe, at number 48, and dates from the early 15th century. Its lower floor was first a prison and then, from the 15th century, a store for ammunition and weapons; today the tower houses an art gallery and a tavern.

A steep stair leads up to the covered wall walkway, nearly 200 metres long, which links Hellemann with the Munkadetagune Tower (the tower behind the monks, named for the Dominican monastery behind it). From the walkway you look down over the Old Town and out across the rooftops. The walk is free with the Tallinn Card.

Nun’s, Sauna and Golden Foot towers

On the north-western side of the Old Town, the Nun’s Tower (Nunnatorn), Sauna Tower (Saunatorn) and Golden Foot Tower (Kuldjala torn) are joined by a short stretch of wall you can walk along. The view takes in the Old Town and Toompea Castle. The walk is run by the Kodulinna Maja heritage association, and you buy the ticket at the Nun’s Tower on Suur-Kloostri street. It is free with the Tallinn Card.

Fat Margaret (Paks Margareeta)

Fat Margaret guards the Great Coastal Gate (Suur Rannavärav) at the northern end of Pikk, at number 70. Built between 1510 and 1531, this round artillery tower is 25 metres across, with walls between 2.25 and 5.5 metres thick, and was meant to protect the harbour and impress arriving ships.

It now houses the Estonian Maritime Museum. The centrepiece is a medieval Hanseatic cog, a wooden merchant ship found in 2015 on the site of the former amusement park in Kadriorg and dated to the early 14th century. In good weather you can go up to the fifth-floor rooftop terrace.

Tallinn Card holders and children up to 8 go in free. Tickets are valid for one entry within a week of purchase, and sales stop 30 minutes before closing.

Viru Gate (Viru värav)

At the end of Viru street, two round 14th-century gate towers with red conical roofs remain from a larger gateway complex that was largely taken down in the 19th century. They are free to see from the street at any hour and mark the main entrance to the Lower Town on foot.

Practical tips for visitors

• Footwear: the stone steps in the towers are worn and uneven. Wear shoes with grip.
• Temperature: the Bastion Passages feel cold if you come straight from summer heat. Bring a fleece.
• Combined ticketing: if you plan to see Kiek in de Kök, the passages, Fat Margaret and the Town Hall, the Tallinn Card can work out cheaper than separate tickets.
• Tornide väljak: the park by the Nun’s Tower, at the north-western end of the wall, looks along a row of wall towers.

What to see next

• Town Hall and Town Hall Square: The civic centre of the merchant Lower Town.
• Toompea Castle and Alexander Nevsky Cathedral: The upper castle complex directly above Kiek in de Kök.
• St. Olaf’s Church tower: Climb the tower for views over the Old Town and the wall.
• Seaplane Harbour Lennusadam: Tallinn’s maritime museum branch housing the submarine Lembit.