Historic Centre (Old Town) of Tallinn

Merchants of the Hanseatic League built Tallinn into one of the Baltic's wealthiest ports, and their legacy — gabled houses, guild halls, opulent churches — still crowds the lanes within the city's medieval walls. Fire and war spared the Old Town to a degree almost unknown in northern Europe, keeping intact a townscape begun in the 13th century, when Teutonic crusader knights raised a castle on Toompea hill. UNESCO inscribed Tallinn's historic centre as a World Heritage Site in 1997.