Viru Street leads from the modern city into the Old Town through the Viru Gate, a pair of 14th-century towers that form the most used and most photographed entrance to the medieval quarter. The street was Tallinn's main shopping artery for centuries and remains so today — it is the most tourist-trafficked street in the city.
The towers themselves are a good illustration of the Old Town's character: one side faces a modern shopping centre, the other opens onto cobblestones and medieval walls. Just inside the gate, the small flower market operating in the tower archways has been there for decades. The sweater wall along Müürivahe, beginning just north of the towers, sells handmade woolens directly by the people who knitted them — a genuine market rather than a souvenir shop.