Lübeck, Germany

June 3, 2016

Lubeck has been a location for human habitation since the end of the last ice age.  The typical parade of civilizations and kings came through after then establishing the city to be of historic significance.  Around 1200, the port became the capital of the Hanseatic League with the primary import being cloth from Flanders and salt from Luneburg.  Other trade items included fish, butter, grain, wax, beer, and various metals. It stayed powerful until the Denmark civil war from 1534 to 1536. In WWII it was a focal point for bombings and sustained rather significant damage in the 1940s. After the war, the city was just barely within West Germany and as a result became the new home to more than 220,000 refugees escaping the Communist Bloc countries. The brick Gothic structure with the two round towers is the Holsten Gate which marks the western boundary of the old city.  It was built in 1464 and is one of the relics of Lübeck's medieval city fortifications. Along the waterway of the city center are the brick Salzspeicher salt storehouses which were built in the 16th–18th centuries to house the salt mined near Lüneburg. This salt trade in the Baltic region in the Middle Ages was the major reason for the power of Lübeck and the Hanseatic League. We had lunch at the House of the Seamen’s Guildhall which was originally constructed in 1535.  The food was very tasty and the interior décor was indeed very nautical. The old town center has seven church steeples with the oldest being from the 13th and 14th centuries.  Some of the churches are still going under restoration work after the damage from WWII. We were able to visit four of the churches during our time in the city and go up into the tower of St. Peters to get a great view of the city. In the order of the photos is St. Peter’s with the white interior, Lübeck's Cathedral with the black and white altarpiece, St. Jacob’s with the single steeple and clock, and lastly St. Mary’s with the double steeple and rounded front. Without a doubt, Owen’s favorite part of the city was the race car carnival ride that was in the main plaza.