LUBECK, GERMANY

Lübeck, once the former 'Queen of the Hanseatic League', is today a modern city enclosed by historic walls. There is good reason to be proud of it, as the UNESCO has declared the intact ensemble of churches, merchants' houses, warehouses and small narrow alleys in the Old Town part of the world's cultural heritage. 'World literature and the world´s cultural heritage'—this slogan nicely combines Lübeck´s cultural treasures with one another. Not only can the old spirit of the Hanseatic League still be sensed in the Old Town, but you can also imagine the protagonists of such famous novels as Professor Unrat, Tonio Kröger and Buddenbrooks walking by. Apart from Thomas and Heinrich Mann, who certainly belong amongst the city's best known sons, many artists have lived and worked here over the centuries: the painter and sculpturer Bernd Notke, the organ player Dietrich Buxtehude, the author Ida Boy-Ed, the poet Emanuel Geibel and Günter Grass, who has only recently been awarded the Nobel prize for literature. The politician and Nobel peace prize winner Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck in 1913. He used to say 'I... more

User Reviews