In Red-Bricked Northern Germany

[[Here's another post that I meant to publish while we were still in Germany!]]

brick molds in Wismar

A few weeks ago [[the first weekend in November 2013 -- how time flies!]], we made a quick 4-day, whirlwind trip through northern Germany to see one of the last regions of the country that we hadn't been to yet. The trip was filled with lots of train travel, fish, and bricks, and Norddeutschland managed to remind us of Portsmouth, NH, Rockport, MA, and Bruges, while still remaining distinctly German. I'll save the food for another post, so let's talk about trains and bricks.

Day 1: A & B  >  Day 2: B & C  >  Day 3: C, D, & E  >  Day 4: E & F
(click on the map for an interactive version)

Above is our route, all by train. We got a lot of reading and napping accomplished on the trip, when we weren't soaking up the scenery :) Unlike much of the rest of Germany, many of the historic buildings, including cathedrals and churches, are constructed of Backsteine/Formsteine, or bricks.

a brick tower in Wismar

one of Lübeck's city gates

Bremen Hauptbahnhof

inside Lübeck's St-Marien-Kirche, with the bricks painted to resemble stone

Böttcherstraße, Bremen

And, as a result, many of the larger buildings have leaning towers!

Jakobikirche, Lübeck

Holstentor, Lübeck -- you can't tell from this angle, but it was listing to one side

The buildings were certainly influenced by the cities' contact with the Netherlands, too. This, combined with the brick, is what made us think of Bruges and Rockport at the same time!

Roland Statue with a Lebkuchenherz, Bremen

Salzspeicher, with the Holstentor in the background, Lübeck

Am Sande, Lüneburg

We also enjoyed seeing the multi-period architecture in Schwerin (pronounced 'schver-EEN'). We saw lovely old half-timbered buildings, next to more ornate facades from the Gründerzeit, as well as boxy post-war constructions.

Many of the churches in the cities we visited had been bombed and either restored or turned into monuments or museums, like the museum located in the remains of St-Marien-Kirche in Wismar where we learned about  medieval brick-making or the solemn peace memorial at St-Nikolai-Kirche in Hamburg.

left: broken bells in Lübeck's Marienkirche; right: Hamburg's St. Nickalei Kirche

a beautiful memorial in Lübeck's semi-restored Dom

The brick-making museum in Wismar was quite small, but it included interesting equipment, such as the brick molds pictured at the top of the post or this big wheel that was used to lift materials up into the towers--it worked just like a human-sized hamster wheel! We saw a similar contraption inside the tower in Nördlingen [[which I thought I had written about but it turns out I forgot--I hope to write more catch-up posts soon to capture our travels while they are relatively fresh]].

We also came across a gem of a town, Lüneburg. Only 30 minutes out of Hamburg, it escaped the bombs that wiped out almost all of Hamburg and many other cities and towns. Even though it was rainy and cold the day were were there, the town was still charming -- we called it the 'Rothenburg of the North,' though sadly its city walls are no longer standing

We tasted some interesting regional foods during the trip, which I'll report on later. Til then!