Tallinn

I was playing around on Google Earth yesterday, and I think the view of tallinn from satellite is pretty good. You can really see what the town is all about, so I decided to put the picture here on my blog.
If you enlarge the picture on the left, you can see how the town is divided into two. The smaller oval on the bottom right quarter is the upper town, built on a steep hill. The rest of the built up area (mainly red roofs) is the lower town. The upper town was the home of knights and was ruled by feudal law (ie land lords, vassals etc.) The lower town ruled itself under a special law , and was full of merchants and artisans. It was this lower town that made Tallinn the important place that it was, it was a member of the Hanseatic League, a sort of medieval EU.

Smack bang in the middle you can see the town hall square, which was the market place in times gone by. It is still the focal point of Tallinn today.