10th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP 2005)

About Tallinn

Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia with 400,000 inhabitants, used to be a member of the Hansa League of Northern European cities. Its beautiful medieval Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Tallinn is situated on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland, and it is 80 kms from Helsinki, 300 kms from Riga, 350 kms from St Petersburg and 375 kms from Stockholm.

The 2nd APPSEM II Workshop was held in Tallinn in April 2004, and it elicited the following testimonies:

John Hughes:

When I first  visited Tallinn earlier this year  I had no particularly
high expectations of the city. How wrong I was! The Old Town is one of
the  most  strikingly  beautiful  and best  preserved  mediaeval  city
centres I  have ever  seen, and  our meeting room  was in  a beautiful
historic building. The link with the East adds its own spice: watching
a service  in the Russian Orthodox  cathedral is an  experience I will
treasure for a long time. Just strolling around the town with a camera
is a  joy, and despite  a return  trip in the  summer I have  far from
exhausted the museums  and sights. A huge investment  has been made in
renovations, and the mediaeval centre is now "like new". Meanwhile the
food and  service offered  by the restaurants  is excellent --  and at
prices  that  are still  very,  very  reasonable  compared to  Western
Europe. Tallinn is  a true pearl which I am  convinced will become one
of the major tourist attractions of Northern Europe. The time to visit
is  now  --  before the  prices  rise  to  match  the quality  of  the
experience.

Philip Wadler:

The location  and organization were among the best of any meetings I
have attended.

Olivier Danvy:

And the French bakery just up the street was such a treat.

Further testimonies:

The first time that I visited Tallinn was in 1999. When I walked around I thought I must be the only foreigner enjoying this beautiful mediaeval city. Sometimes you are on a place which you enjoy so much that you actually don't want tell it to somebody else because you don't want to spoil the spot. Well somebody advertised it all right... This year I was visiting Tallinn again and it has changed enormously. Everyone seems to have discovered the place. Despite of all the tourist shops it is still great place to be. Discover the beauty of this city, the friendly people, the nice pieces of art, and the good meals and beers still available at very affordable prices.
Rinus Plasmeijer, December 2004.

Travel and accomodation

There are direct flights to Tallinn from London, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Berlin, Vienna, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Prague, Warsaw, Moscow, Kiev, Vilnius, Riga, ferries from Stockholm, Helsinki, St Petersburg. From Helsinki, there are also fast boat services and a helicopter service. To get to Tallinn from North America, one normally flies to Copenhagen or Stockholm with United or to Helsinki with American and further directly to Tallinn with SAS resp. Finnair. The airport is 4 kms from the city center, the harbour with its four terminals is just next to the city center.

The accommodation, catering and transportation infrastructure in the city are very good. The cultural life in Tallinn is very vivid and of high level. On the music and theatre scene Tallinn outperforms many European centers of far bigger size.

The price level for hotels and restaurants is lower than in Western Europe and it is possible to get very high value for reasonable money. The airfares however tend to be a tad more expensive than one would perhaps expect; this is because of airline alliance monopolies. For more information consult the website of The Tallinn City Tourist Office at http://www.tourism.tallinn.ee.