bretzelitos

Finally waking up at 0900 – wonderful… like the breakfast buffet in our hotel “Europäischer Hof”.

After some nice cold cuts, fruits and a hanseatic cup of tea, we decided to go by train to Lübeck at 1030. It is situated close to the Baltic sea side, located some 65kms northeast of Hamburg.

First, we walked into the city center passing ‘Holstentor’, the famous bridge gate to Lübeck that was also depicted on 50 Deutschmark bills earlier. We were then passing through the Old Town narrow streets, visiting the market next to the town hall and the church of St. Marien. The church itself got pretty much destroyed in 1942, several objects inside are damaged, including the church bells that are exhibited there – broken, melted and crushed into the floor after falling from the collapsing tower.

We had lunch in the ‘Ratskeller’ restaurant where we have tried out a Lübeck traditional product – the ‘Rotspon’ red wine. This is actually not produced there in Schleswig-Holstein in the North of Germany. It is red wine from the Bordeaux area in France that is transported in Oak barrels to Germany and stored there for some years in the Hamburg – Lübeck area prior to be consumed. This has the result that the young French wine ripens significantly and gets a superior quality. The food and service has been absolutely excellent – such as the interior decoration of the restaurant itself. We had a great time and can positively recommend it. Surely we will come back.

Afterwards, we provided ourselves with Marzipan from the Niederegger Outlet in the city center. Lübeck is known for its high quality Marzipan products throughout Germany.

We continued by having a 1 hour boat tour around the central island of Lübeck. We have seen a lot of nature, modern and old architecture with explanations from the captain in German language.

After a short stop for some clothes accessories, we went back to Hamburg at around 1710.

After a short rest in our hotel room, we went for a nice walk in very favourable evening weather in Hamburg. We walked northbound towards the Alster lakes, went through along the quays of the ‘Binnenalster’ and its connected channels. Eventually we arrived in the harbour area again, stayed some minutes and took a S-Bahn train back to our hotel, finishing once again a wonderful day on our trip.