Fat Margaret Maritime Museum

Paks Margareeta was finished in 1531 as an artillery tower guarding the Great Coastal Gate, with walls up to five metres thick. It has been a gun position, a barracks and a prison, and after a long reconstruction it reopened in 2019 as the Estonian Maritime Museum's second site.

What you actually see

• Four floors in the round tower - shipbuilding, navigation, the Hanseatic trade, harbours and life at sea.
• Models and salvage - instruments and ship fittings rather than text panels.
• The curved rooms - the shape of the building used as part of the display, with a new central stair connecting the floors.
• The roof terrace - a view straight down onto the gate, along the old town wall and out to the port.

When to go

Any season, since it is indoors apart from the roof. Clear days matter, because the terrace is the highlight and closes in bad weather. Pairing it with the Seaplane Harbour makes sense: the two sites are different in character and there is a combined ticket.

Honest expectations

This is the smaller and more conventional of the two maritime sites. If you only have time for one and want the spectacle - a submarine, seaplanes, a hangar - go to the Seaplane Harbour instead; Fat Margaret is the history rather than the hardware.

The stair is the only way up and there are a lot of steps for the floor area.

Nearby

St Olaf's Church is two minutes down Pikk street. Kalamaja, Patarei and the Seaplane Harbour are a fifteen-minute walk along the shore.