Luebeck from the air

Beautiful old town protected by the river

It has been my goal to see Luebeck ever since I saw a documentary on it on SBS.  It was an important Hansa (German trade port league) city in the 12th to 15th centuries and in the 14th century was the capital of the league and 2nd most important city in Germany (after Cologne).  All this history of wealthy trading of course translates to beautiful architecture.  The currently most important product of Luebeck (to me anyway) is marzipan, so you can imagine how important getting there was to me.

I had picked out a great little airfield, called Hof Altona 28kms north of Luebeck on the beach, a nice cycle into town and organised to camp there.  But once again the weather was not my friend so we decided to just stop for petrol at the main airport and keep on going to Berlin to surprise Julian's sister Clare by arriving a week earlier than expected.

Petri church tower

On the left the symbol of Luebeck, the Holsten gate, along with the historic Salzspeicher (salt warehouse) buildings, in the brick renaissance style.  

Luebeck's wealth was grounded upon being the harbour on the end of the salt route, exporting salt to Scandinavia for fish preservation.  But more importantly these buildings were used as a set in the classic movie Nosferatu.