Tallinn is a medieval city that kept its walls, and the thick stone towers and steep red roofs of its old town make it among the best-preserved in northern Europe. It grew rich as a Hanseatic port, trading with Novgorod and Lübeck, and the merchants' houses and guildhalls built in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries still line the cobbled lanes. Above it all stands Toompea, the hill of the castle and the parliament, with the onion domes of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, built in the 1890s when Estonia was part of the Russian Empire, still dominating the view.
The city has an ironic, sophisticated modern face as well. Estonia regained its independence in 1991 after a Singing Revolution, in which hundreds of thousands gathered to sing banned national songs, and the Baltic Way of 1989, when two million people joined hands in a human chain from Tallinn to Vilnius. Today Estonians are famous for their digital services, and almost everything can be done online. In Kadriorg, a park east of the old town, Peter the Great's baroque palace stands among gardens and fountains, and the seaside promenade of Pirita, with its yacht harbour, reaches toward the forest.
For riders, the city is the start of an easy run east along the Gulf of Finland to Lahemaa National Park, about seventy kilometres away. The road passes through pine forest, then leads to a coast of small bays and fishing villages, with enormous granite boulders left by the ice sheets lying in fields and on the beach. In the park, grand manors such as Palmse and Sagadi, built by Baltic German landowners, stand among old parks, and bogs have boardwalk trails. The roads are mostly smooth, with long gentle bends and little traffic, and in summer it hardly gets dark until nearly midnight, so evening rides are a delight. Winter, however, is cold and icy, and riders mostly stay home.
Fuel stations are plentiful in Tallinn and its suburbs, and along the main road east, with smaller ones in towns such as Kose. Estonian police are strict about speed, with cameras and patrols, and headlights must be on all day. Food is a pleasure, with black rye bread, smoked fish, sour cream soups and, in the old town, medieval-themed taverns serving roast boar and honey beer. A walk on the town wall at dusk, when the lamps come on and the towers glow, is a lovely way to end a day.