Tartu Old Town

Tartu is Estonia's second city and its intellectual one - the university dates from 1632, and the town has been shaped by it ever since. The old town is not medieval in the way Tallinn's is: fire in 1775 and the war in 1944 took most of it, and what stands now is largely late eighteenth-century classical rebuilding, which gives Tartu a lighter, more open feel.

What you actually see

Town Hall Square, a wedge of pastel facades sloping down to the Emajõgi river, with the pink town hall at the head and the Kissing Students fountain in front of it. On one side stands the Barclay House, visibly leaning where its foundations settled into the old moat.

Above the square rises Toomemägi, the cathedral hill: parkland, the university's old observatory, two arched bridges, and the ruined brick cathedral, part of which was rebuilt into the university museum. The white-columned main university building sits at the foot of the hill.

When to go

• September to May - term time, when the town has its actual character.
• Late June to August - quieter and warmer, with river terraces open and most students gone.
• Winter - short days but a good Christmas market and an ice rink on the square.

Honest expectations

If you have just come from Tallinn and are expecting the same density of medieval fabric, Tartu will read as ordinary at first. Its appeal is atmosphere, museums and student life rather than architecture you photograph.

Distances are walkable but Toomemägi is a real hill, and the paths ice over in winter.

Nearby

The Estonian National Museum and AHHAA science centre are both in the city. Taevaskoja and Lake Peipus are each about an hour out.