Estonia is one of my all-time favourite places to visit, and perhaps because it’s relatively unknown to most of us it’s full of surprises. One of the nicest cities is Tartu in the south-east part of Estonia – the largest city after Tallinn and significant because it’s Estonia’s famous university town.

And it’s at the historical University of Tartu where you can uncover a gem of a sightseeing spot. Just looking around the university building itself is great – they have an art gallery, and other museums too. You can get useful info about these in English at the Walk Through University of Tartu site.

But when I visited I made sure to follow a tip I’d received to ask to see the Student’s Lock-Up. Back in more punitive days students who broke university rules would be sentenced to spend time up in the lock-up, and the “prisoner” often drew pictures or wrote stories on the walls, which you can still see today. It’s also a little terrifying to see what kind of “crimes” would get students sent there – I would’ve had a big problem because having overdue library books could get you put in the lock-up.

When you’re in Tartu why not visit one of my other favourite attractions there, the crooked Art Museum.

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