Hamburg/Lubeck

Allergies prevented Florian from sleeping very well.  But it didn't matter, because Uwe told us we would enjoy the Fischmarkt more if we got there before 6 a.m.

It wasn't bicycle riding weather.

Just as Uwe predicted, the place was jumping with locals and tourists who either shopped, ate, danced or just drank more beer.

Vendors also auctioned flowers and sold live poultry.

 

We bought a discounted fruit basket for 9 euros.  It lasted most of our road trip.

Hamburg hopes a new opera house, which overlooks the Elbe, will put it on Germany's cultural map instead of Broadway productions like The Lion King, Rocky and The Phantom of the Opera.  They currently draw tourists from all over Germany.  Along with the Reeperbahn, of course.

Hamburg's Rathaus (or City Hall), built in the late 1800s but not destroyed in World War II, is bigger than most because it's home to the state's parliament, too.

So many beautiful architectural details, inside and out.

Have you ever seen a statue licking batter from a spoon?

Florian got acquainted with this satyr before we hit the road to Lubeck, another significant port city, about an hour's drive away.

Brick Gothic architecture, much of it destroyed by Royal Air Force bombing during World War II, put Lubeck on the tourist map.

You can enter the mostly restored city near the Holsten Gate.

Another impressive Rathaus overlooks the town square.

The city's other charms include two marzipan shops

. . . toy shopping

. . . a children's museum

. . . and a home where the family of Thomas Mann once lived.  It's the white building.

I don't recommend the tour.  Not much to see unless you enjoy reading lengthy literary captions.

We bought some brotchen for a picnic lunch using the oily but delicious butter fish that Florian purchased in Hamburg.

By the time we got to Schwerin, the capital of Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, I was almost too exhausted to take a picture of the magnificent schloss (castle) that now serves as the seat of the state's government.