Excursion to Lunenburg

This time our excursion leads to another very old town. Lunenburg is located about 50 km (31 mi) southeast of another Hanseatic city, Hamburg. Its population is around 72,000 people on 70,38 sqkm. Lunenburg is also called the “Salt Town”, a reminder of the days when it was the center of a major salt industry. There was a saline in a park some years ago. Lunenburg lies on the river Ilmenau, about 30 kilometres (19 mi) from its confluence with the Elbe. The river flows through the town; it was formerly traversed by cogs taking salt from the town to the other, larger, ports of the Hanseatic League nearby.
The old town of Lunenburg lies above a salt dome which is the town’s original source of prosperity. However, the constant mining of the salt deposits over which the town stands has also resulted in the sometimes gradual, sometimes dramatically pronounced, sinking of various areas of the town. (A lot of houses are askew- as you can see on my photos).
Lunenburg was first mentioned in medieval records in a deed signed on 13 August, 956 AD, in which Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor granted “the tax from Lunenburg to the monastery built there in honour of Saint Michael”. (Wikipedia)
One of the most outstanding buildings of Northern Germany is the historic Lunenburg town hall. They began to build it in the year 1230 and continued during centuries to extend it. It’s the largest medieval town hall in Northern Germany.
The historic city center of Lunenburg was fortunately not destroyed during WWII. Therefore you can still see 3 very old churches, St. John (start of construction 1289, completed 1470), St. Michael, in which Johann Sebastian Bach was choirboy from 1700 – 1702 and St. Nicolai which was built from 1407 onwards.
The old round wooden crane at the river Ilmenau is from medieval times, too.
A lot of the old houses have been built out of bakestone in a beautiful dark reddish-brown color and the stones sometimes look like ropes which is very extraordinary.
On my photos you can see the water tower, the smeltmarket, Lueneburg harbor, chamber of commerce, town hall, a city tour by horse, old houses, etc.
One of the reasons that I love Lunenburg so much is very personal. My grandaunt Gertrud was living there many years and we visited her very often. She was the nicest person I have ever met in my life, always kind, helpful and loving to everybody. We could “order” the food we liked best of all and she would cook it, she sewed a lot of dresses for me, even made caps from fur by hand, baked cakes for me etc. etc. When we walked around in Lueneburg together she would give a coin to every beggar she saw. She never forgot that she was a refugee from Pomerania in WWII and had gone through very hard times in poverty and hunger. Even though she was mistreated by Russian soldiers in the war, she never said a bad word about Russians afterwards. She was my angel and has accompanied my life some years in such a wonderful loving and caring way for which I’m still thankful.