Tartu Things to Do

The monument to Micheal Barklay-de-Tolli who became famous after Napoleonic wars is in the park near the historical centre. Money for this monument gathered by military officers who were leaded by Barklay-de-Tolli. The monument in classicism style was opened in 1849.

The ruins of which remind one of the times when Tartu was the residence of the Bishop. The cathedral, completed in the 15th century, was destroyed during the Livonian War. Now there is the Tartu University History Museum.

The idea of the meeting of Irish writer Oscar Waild and Estonian writer Oscar Vilde is realised in this monument. In real life both writers didn’t meet. In the building under backs of writers is printing-house. Now this building is used as Irish pub and café.

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We had a little rest and decided to explore the neighbourhood around the B&B. It was totally different from downtown Tartu with narrow dust streets and old wooden houses of which most were in bad shape. What really pleased us was to see that people worked on renovating them. We love old buildings and many of these houses were very pretty with carvings and beautiful doors. It is obvious that people living in them are not wealthy but they are doing a lot to improve their way of living. You may not know it that Estonian and Finnish languages are related and there are similar words in these two languages. There are also words which are the same but mean totally different things. When reading Estonian I can understand the meaning though not every word, but when I hear Estonian spoken I get a feeling that it is Finnish and that I know what they are talking but it is just an illusion. In reality I don’t understand spoken Estonian. We had fun reading the signs and trying to figure out what they said.

Next museum was 19th Century City House museum, which turned out to be a very small one. Like its name it was in one house and showed how bourgeois family lived back then. It didn’t take us very long to see it but it was very interesting anyway. Funny thing was that when we entered there the lady said “It’s two pensioner’s tickets then?” It was the very first time when somebody has taken me for a pensioner and I am not sure how to take it! Ulla soothed me by saying that the lady saw her first and it was quite dark in the museum so her mistake was natural.

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We are children at heart and enjoyed looking at the displays of old toys. There were some beautiful old dolls, ones like they no longer make, doll houses, paper dolls, teddy bears, board games, toy cars & trains etc. we spent a long time there, longer than we had thought but it was all worth it.

Open: Wed-Sun 11.00-18.00

Admission: EEK 15

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As we had time we decided to walk to the National Museum of Estonia to see the display “Estonia. Land, people, culture”. As Ulla doesn’t like to walk uphill we tried to find another way than crossing Toome Hill and thought that we did although it would be longer way. Longer it was alright but at the end we had to climb the Toome Hill after all. And that was not all. When we were starting to climb (climb might not be the word because the hill wasn’t very high at all) it started to rain. We put on our raincoats and the rain got harder and harder. The skies opened and the legs of our trousers were wet, very wet, in very short time. They didn’t feel nice at all I can tell you. We found the museum and left the raincoats in the cloakroom and started our tour. The display was very interesting showing furniture, clothes, tools, dishes as well as customs of that time in Estonia. Of course they reminded us a lot of those in Finland so it was not really new to us, but everything was set up nicely and we were the only ones there so we could see everything in peace.

The statue of two Wildes seems to be a popular place for tourists to stop and take photos and I was no exception. Somebody had left a small bottle of vodka (empty) so I toasted to Oscar Wilder and Estonian writer Eduard Wilde with it! These two writers lived at the same time but never met.