Lüneburg

Lüneburg is a smaller and very old city not too far from Hamburg, just about 30 minutes, and one of the cities of the hanseatic league. I have been there many times, but never as a real tourist and I was blown away this time. Maybe I look at things different now? It is one of the nicest and prettiest cities I have ever been to. A lot of the old architecture was preserved, because there was little war damage and obviously no huge push for wrecking and rebuilding. A lot of new buildings are made to work well with the old buildings.

Lüneburg was a very wealthy town, they discovered salt deposits and were mining it extensively, 24 hours a day with the only exception being good Friday. There was a lot of lead involved in keeping the kettles working and a lot of people died of lead poisoning back then. The salt water contained 24% salt, almost the maximum, and salt back then was as valuable as gold. A sack of salt could buy you a house. Because of taking out the salt water deposits, a lot of buildings in the city sank or tilted, it is funny to see the crooked houses, some rooms have an elevation difference of over a foot, must be weird to live there.

Since this hanseatic city was so rich, it has a tremendous amount of beautiful architecture and a lot of city squares and churches. A lot of the buildings and churches are so old, it is hard to imagine. We even went into a crane building that was built in 1436. It had these 2 huge wooden wheels for 6-8 people inside to move them - like hamster wheels and even the whole building could be rotated by people. To see such an ingenious structure that was built even before Columbus set off sailing west, incredible. Also quite magnificant is the town hall, which has been a work of 800 years, we had no chance to go inside, I just saw pictures and I have to go inside some other time to see the halls. We did visit the court yard and were able to see the different parts and additions added through the centuries.

We took a carriage ride through the city and had a wonderful tour guide who was as informative as funny. The girls got to sit in the front with him, what a treat.

The last thing we visited was St. Johannis, a very old five naved church that is built in the beautiful and typical North German Brick Gothic architecture. It was erected between 1300 and 1370. I think it is so wonderful, because a lot of the architectural elements are accentuated by paint which is done in a light green and a terra cotta color. Most of the walls are whitewashed and the space is enormous and features many different stain glass windows.

Even though history and architecture is might exciting, there are also little shops and many of them and many cafes and restaurants and old breweries on the many squares or along the river Ilmenau (a great kayaking river!). Since it is also a university town, it is young and vibrant. We had very nice Italian ice cream, a good treat to dangle in front of the children to get some sight seeing done :)

I will definitely go back, maybe even for a few days. The surrounding countryside is just wonderful for bike trips and kayaking, hiking and excursions.