Few northern European cities have kept as much of their medieval defences as Tallinn. Long sections of the enceinte still stand, punctuated by round towers with red conical roofs, linked by covered wall-walks and anchored by fortified gates that controlled every entrance to the town. The system was built and rebuilt over centuries as artillery changed the arithmetic of defence, and the result is a legible lesson in military architecture: wall thickness, tower spacing, arrow slits giving way to gun ports, and the gradual addition of outer works. The episode climbs into the towers and along the walkways, filming the timber floors, the stonework and the views over the roofs of the old town. It sets the fortifications in their historical context, a wealthy trading city on a contested Baltic shore, obliged to defend the wealth its harbour brought in.
