Luebeck

Luebeck is one of the largest cities in Northern Germany and it's old town is on an island surrounded by the river Elbe and a man-made canal, and as it was within walking distance of the hotel it seemed perfect for a morning stroll...

...spoiled only by it being stupidly early in the morning (I was out at 5am) and being horrendously wet. Anyway, that's the entrance to the old town on the north bank of the island.It's the lesser of the two original entrances that remain and is called the Burgtor. The other one is called Holstentor. This one is from the 14th Century.

I wonder what they sell here?

The city has lots of churches and spires and stuff. That's the jakobkirche.

This building has rather a lot of them. It's actually the city hospital. It's not known if they get many cases of parachuters impaling themselves on their roof. It's called the Hospital of the Holy Spirit...Impalings and Holy; see what I did there?

The backstreets had a medieval vibe to them, possibly because some of them were originally built then.

St Jacob's church is one of the biggest churches in the city and can usually be seen from quite an area, just not today as it was a tad overcast.

Heading away from the centre of town I headed down the cobbled streets to the waters edge where a myriad of boats were docked.

Liking the artwork outside this music venue.

Loving the Gothic stylee!

That's St Mary's church, the double spired Gothic monster church was built in the mid 12th century but obviously has had some work done to its since.

Lubeck has a famous story about the devil and his plans to have the townsfolk build a huge wine bar in the city. Instead they built St Mary's church. Feeling deceived he threatened to knock the building down with a huge rock but the townsfolk told him to shut up and let the building stand, instead they'd build the wine bar next door. Which they have. I don't know where the pizza parlour fitted into the storyline. A little embellishing perhaps.

If you walk around the back of the church you can find the devil sitting waiting for the wine bar to open.
At this point I decided that having had a date with the devil it was probably time to head back to the hotel. I was soaked through. Sometimes I can be too stubborn for my own good when it comes to insisting on seeing the cities I'm staying in.

Another nice little sculpture I passed on the way back.

and a tiny little stencil too.

Luebeck appeared to be a nice little city. I didn't get all the way across it where I could have found the more famous Holstentor gate and the city Dom. Perhaps if I'd had more time and less rain to deal with I'd have made it across :)

as it happens I'd needn't have worried.

Forget Norway, it's Kenya