John and I walked into the Lubeck information centre while Katherine was still having breakfast as she walks fast and we wanted to see if we could find a cache or two on the way in. We found one and were heading for a second when we were turned back. We saw cameras and first thought it was a school group or similar. We soon found over 20 trucks and trailers and realised it was a bigger production than that.

We were at the Info centre in good time so rang Jennifer white waiting for Katherine to arrive. We also bought a map that had suggested a walking tour of the city that would take about 90 minutes, with extra time if you went into sites.

It told us that a Slav settlement, Liubice, was destroyed in 1138 and Lubeck was founded nearby soon after. Brisk trade in the Baltic area soon developed Salt played a major role and later red wine from France. The layout of the old city area dates from this time.

It is a sign of the importance of Lubeck at the time that the Hanseatic League was founded under it leadership. The League was a federation of 200 towns for the protection of trade and regulation of economic matters.

We were close to the Holsten Gate, which is one of Germany’s most well-known buildings we were told. It is now a base for a museum but we just admired it from the outside, along with the tour party that had just arrived. It was built in 1469-78 and restored in 1871 when an inscription was added. There is another inscription on the field side.

The gate to the old centre of Lubeck

The text is "concordia domi foris pax" ("harmony within, peace without"). This inscription is also from 1871 and is a shortened form of the text which had previously been on the (not preserved) foregate: "Concordia domi et pax foris sane res est omnium pulcherrima" ("Harmony within and peace without are indeed the greatest good of all". It marks the western boundary of the old city.

We stopped at the foyer of the puppet museum. It has either recently moved or is about to move, we were not quite sure. As we were not intending to go in we were not concerned.

We did go into the next stop at the Petrikirche. The church itself was very plain on the inside, which actually was a relief after some very, very ornate interiors We were there to go up the tower which proved to be easy as there was a lift and no option of stairs. It may be a sign of how lovely the views from the top were that we only realised there was a cache here when we got back to the bottom. As it was called Lubeck’s highest cache we assumed we had missed this one. It was also here that I realised I had dropped the map somewhere. Luckily the desk here also sold tourist maps, although they were slightly different, and a bit more expensive. It was better than spending time retracing footsteps to the information centre. I asked John and Katherine to look after this new map.

Our next stop was at the area that was the market, town hall and close to the main church. We eyed up the fruit and decided to return for some later. The Rathaus is impressive, as we expected, given the historical importance of the city. The building was begun in 1230 with 3 towers. The Renaissance front was added in 1570 and the stairs in 1594. One wall was rebuilt in 1887 and the interior has had a number of changes over the years, including after wartime damage. We didn’t go inside as we had basically decided to see things from the street unless they had special appeal.  

There was an interesting cache based on the myths associated with the Marienkirche (St Mary Church), 2 of which concerned the outside, so we had 2 spots we focused on as sadly for us the astronomical clock here is being reconstructed. It is the third biggest church in Germany we later discovered, so perhaps we should have gone it.

The second relates to a weathered stone which was harder to see. An old, rich Lübeck merchant didn't want to die. Whenever Death came to fetch him, he sent him away. Finally, he became so old that he didn't know anybody any more as everybody had died before him, even his children and grandchildren. Now, he no longer wanted to live anymore but Death wouldn't come to him. One night, the merchant went looking for him in St. Mary's. He climbed up a ladder that the workmen had left behind, onto the roof and waited. He waited so long that he shrivelled up and turned to stone/

The last is about a mouse that is inside the church. Many hundreds of years ago, when St. Mary's was still quite new, a large rose bush grew next to the church. The people of Lübeck believed that as long as the bush flowered, their city would remain free, but one morning the rose bush had withered and dried out. A mouse, so it is said, had made its nest in its roots, and soon afterwards, Lübeck was handed to the Danes. When the town was free once more, the town council had the mouse carved into stone behind the choir - as a reminder that dire misfortune can arise from a lesser evil overnight. Over the centuries the small church mouse has won a place in the hearts of the people of Lübeck. They called her Rosemary and touching the small stone mouse will bring luck.

We got a bit off track as the new map was not as clear as the original. We found a couple more old churches and then stopped for lunch in the Potato Cellars. They were the old potato cellars now redone as cafes with outdoor spaces as well. On reflection it was not my best suggestion because, although the food was fine the servings were huge. I had really nice potato dumplings in mushroom sauce but they were also covered in a thick layer of cheese which was nice but very rich. None of us finished, although we enjoyed the meals.

The Dom was at the furthest east of the old city. By the time we got here, John was struggling with the heat so sat under a lion (statue) while Katherine and I went into the church. It is the oldest church in Lubeck and its foundation stone was laid by Henry the Lion in 1173. It is both 120m long and 120m high. It suffered serious damage in WW2 which was largely repaired by 1959. We walked around it to see if we could find the skeleton we could see from the inside but it was part of a natural museum. We did find a marble statue and I answered the questions needed for an earthcache.

Our next stop was back in the marketplace area at the café that was recommended by both Mike Merrick to us and Jess Herd to Katherine. We were ready for drinks more than food by then but the cakes were too tempting. We then bought strawberries, beer sticks and some vegetables for tea, which Katherine offered to take back while we headed for the river.

With boat timings not good and our enthusiasm not that high, John decided to head back to the apartment the quick way and I decided to go a slower way with a canal walk. After going around in a circle first, I found the way to the canal and enjoyed the walk, although I saw more of interesting backyards than the canal.I also picked up some caches.

After our mixed tea, we decided to drive to the sea and found 2 possibilities. The closest was Travemunde, which we found was also part of Lubeck. On the way we noticed tolls were mentioned which seemed odd in Germany. It proved to be correct and we needed 1.70 euro to use a tunnel. Parking was initially stressful until we found a largely empty lot that was even free at this time of day. We found we were at a port area but managed to walk far enough to find sand and then water to dip our toes in. We had a lot of fun watching the sun go down and the people on the beach, before heading back.  A random but fun end to the day.