Lubeck, Germany

On Saturday, May 14, we traveled to Lubeck, about a 40 minute train ride northeast of Hamburg. Both Hamburg and Lubeck were part of the Hanseatic league in the Middle Ages. The league controlled the trade of northern Germany at that time.

Lubeck is a well-preserved city with many examples of Gothic brick architecture, including cathedrals, hospitals, and town hall. Due to its location in the middle of the Trave river, there were also very interesting city gates.

The city invented marzipan, or niederegger, in German. For those of you who haven't tasted it (like me until today), marzipan is a confection like nougat, but has a very different texture sort of like a thick, floury cookie dough. People like Martha Stewart and a lot of German folks make decorative candies and cake decorations with it. I saw some in the shop where we purchased the candy bar below -- very pretty stuff that has been hand-painted.

See more photos of Lubeck in the linked title of this post.