TRAVEL IMPRESSIONS OF AN ART AND HISTORY LOVER
and my experiences as a teacher in China
UMGEBUNGSENTDECKER
Lüneburg Heath
About salt trade, Celle and the Welfs
CONTENTS
- Undeloh - centered in the heath
- Wilsede and the heath in autumn
- Lüneburg, beautiful brick city
- Turnstones and rope stones, special features of the brick Gothic
- Lüneburg's town hall, one of the most impressive town halls in Germany
- Lüneburg's largest salt storage facility
- The Wasserviertel (water district)
- The oldest canal in Europe, built in 1398 to transport salt
- Lauenburg, southernmost city Schleswig-Holstein
- Heath cloisters, outposts on the Slavic border
Undeloh
This autumn it took us to Lüneburg Heath. The accommodation was in the small town of Undeloh. From there you reach the end of the paved road in a few meters. There you have to change to a bike, a horse-drawn carriage or hiking boots. It felt a bit like being the end of the world, but that was exactly what we wanted.
Undeloh is really quiet in October. The small shop, which still sells rolls in the morning, will stop selling them at the end of October until next year. There, in addition to various things for breakfast and some other food, you can get souvenirs made from processed Heidschnucken (heath sheep) wool in any form: Warming slippers, skins, shepherd's vests, heath liqueur, heath honey, schnaps, etc.
All seems well with the world in that small shop because the owner doesn't even have to lock it when she disappears for a moment.
Wilsede and the heath in autumn
From the end of the paved road it goes to Wilsede, a town with 40 inhabitants. The place consists of a collection of typical Heath farmhouses that look exactly as you would imagine: thatched, low hipped roofs, in each house a large gate in the middle of the half-timbered facade. The plots of land are fenced in with boulder walls with all kinds of moss and grass growing in the gaps - photo opportunities wherever you look.
Since the farm houses appear to be interspersed in the pine forest and only through their accumulation give rise to the idea of a village at all, there is no town center. The museum , which is surrounded by several inns, forms a kind of center.
From Wilsede you can continue to the so-called Totengrund, one of the most mystical places on the Lüneburg Heath. Pastor Wilhelm Bode once saved this area from development in 1906 by buying up the site, creating the first nature reserve in Germany. The Totengrund is a kind of hollow into which you can look down from a hill. The juniper bushes are strangely isolated on the heath. In the morning fog, with snow or during the heath bloom, this sight can certainly arouse meditative or spiritual feelings in someone. For indigenous peoples, this might be a sacred place.
During our walks and bike rides through the heath, unbelievable colors emerged: The land was bathed in an earthy color spectrum: the moor, the dried up grass, the yellow and orange of the autumn leaves, the red of the bricks, the black and white the heath sheep, now and then a piece of blue sky, shining, pale yellow birch trees in the light of the low sun, old, large oaks under which you can walk over crunching acorns, juniper bushes that often protrude individually from the flat, barren land in the sky again and again migratory birds that make their way southbound in a wedge formation.
In the evening the fire crackles in the restaurant, while it gets dark early outside and on the way home you only meet a cat running across the street.
Lüneburg
Lüneburg is a pretty lively city. There are many shops for Lüneburgers or people from the surrounding area, but there are also a number of beautiful gastronomic offers in traditional-looking inns. The city is far from being a museum like Rothenburg, for example, although it partially has the potential to do so. At first one is surprised by the many old buildings. Lüneburg has an almost completely preserved cityscape of half-timbered and brick buildings.
Turnstones and rope stones
The brick houses in the rich cities of the north often have decorations, for example on the entrance portals, where the stones deviate from the usual rectangular shape. Turned bricks are particularly common in Lüneburg, with a ridge spiraling upwards over several stacked bricks.
Variants of North German brick design such as dew stones and salt glazes can be clearly seen here on a portal of the Lüneburg town hall
So-called rope stones, where the bricks look like rope twisted from several strands, are also popular. The shiny blue and black surface of some bricks, which you can see in the photo below, was created by salt glaze that was added during the bricks' firing process. During this process, sodium vapors are deposited on the bricks and combine with the quartz in the clay to form a silicate, the salt glaze.
The town hall
One of the absolute highlights in the city is the town hall, of which no photo can be seen inside due to the ban on photos. The building was started in 1230 and has been added to over the centuries, with the old never being adapted to fashion or destroyed, so that the entire history can be viewed without gaps, especially since the town hall was never destroyed in wars. Particularly noteworthy are the court arbor, the prince's hall, the old archive, the chancellery and the large council chamber. It is certainly one of the most important town halls in northern Germany, if not all of Germany.
The salt - Lüneburg's wealth
Lüneburg was a rich city, which you can see from the fact that the city was built of stone. The wealth was based on salt, which was mined for a thousand years until 1980. Because of this secure and lucrative source of income, the Lüneburgers had no industry worth mentioning, which saved it from bombing in World War II.
1400 historical buildings have been preserved, so that the city today presents a fairly closed historical picture.
The Lüneburg salt was obtained by boiling. The very salty brine that was pumped out of the earth had to be boiled. For this you needed wood and since large beech and oak forests were next to the city, they were cut down without further ado, from which today's Lüneburg Heath emerged.
In the German Salt Museum
Replica of boiling pans in the German Salt Museum
Model of the Lüneburg Saline in the German Salt Museum
Lüneburg's largest salt storage facility
The Viscule merchant family lived in the Wasserviertel (Wasser Quarter) since 1291. She traded in everything, but especially in salt, and built her building, the Handelshof, at the harbor. In 1485 the family went bankrupt. The building came into the possession of the city and was converted into Lüneburg's largest salt storage facility. Two fires in the 20th century hit the building, but a few years ago the Handelshof was renovated again as part of a renovation project for the entire water district and today it looks like the pictures below.
The Wasserviertel (Water District)
The Wasserviertel is a beautiful part of Lüneburg, where the city with the old harbor district opens up towards the river Ilmenau. At this point you can especially feel the historical trading character of the city. The old houses have been lovingly restored, at the harbor there are numerous restaurants with outdoor seating that are terraced along the water.
On the southern edge of the harbor basin, the two mills Lüner Mühle and Abtsmühle are opposite each other on the banks of the Ilmenau and are connected by a weir. In the Lüner mill, grain was ground for the Lüne monastery (more on the heath monasteries later), the abbot's mill belonged to a council family. At the abbot's mill there is a tower with the conspicuous name Abtswasserkunst, which ensured that water was directed into the city. Both mills date from the 16th century.
The water district should not be missed.
The view goes from the Stintmarket to the old crane at the cobblestoned old fish market with weeping willows on the opposite side of the harbor, to the baroque facade of the old department store, the bridge over the Ilmenau with its flowered, cast-iron railing .
On the southern edge of the harbor basin, the two mills Lüner Mühle and Abtsmühle are opposite each other on the banks of the Ilmenau and are connected by a weir. In the Lüner mill, grain was ground for the Lüne monastery (more on the heath monasteries later), the abbot's mill belonged to a council family. At the abbot's mill there is a tower with the conspicuous name Abtswasserkunst, which ensured that water was directed into the city. Both mills date from the 16th century.
The water district should not be missed.
Transport routes for the salt,
the Stecknitz Canal
In the Middle Ages, salt was exported from Lüneburg to the entire north and north-east of Europe, which was poor in salt. The trade there took place via Lübeck. In order for the salt to get from Lüneburg to Lübeck, it had to be brought there via the Alte Salzstraße (Old Salt-Road), one of the most important trade routes at the time, which led from Venice to Haithabu.
More about the legendary town of Haithabu? Klick here.
The salt was transported via the Salt Road (Alte Salzstraße) and later, from 1398 onwards, via the Stecknnitz Canal, which connects the Elbe and the Trave.
In 1398 the Lübeckers built the Stecknitz Canal, the oldest artificial waterway in Europe. It connects the Elbe near Lauenburg with Lübeck, where the salt storerooms, in which the Lüneburg salt was stored, still stand at the Holstentor.
In Lübeck, the salt was finally stored in the salt storage facilities next to the Holstentor until it was transported to the whole of north-eastern Europe via Lübeck.
From Lauenburg the twelve-meter-long and 2.50-meter-wide ships were able to transport 7.5 tons of salt with a draft of only 30-40 centimeters. The trip on the canal took two to three weeks and was done by the Stecknitzfahrer (Drivers on the Strecksitz Canal)
In Lübeck, the now renovated Stecknitzfahrer-Amtshaus (office building of the Stecknitzfahrer) is located in the Stecknitzfahrerviertel (the so-called Malerwinkel) on the Obertrave below the cathedral with the exact address Hartengrube 25.
If you want to know more about the Stecknitz drivers click here .
Lauenburg
Lauenburg is located in the border triangle of Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and is the southernmost town in Schleswig-Holstein. The pretty, well-kept old town on the banks of the Elbe River invites you to linger with its several restaurants and pubs. In the autumn during the coronavirus pandemic, it was quite empty, and the sidewalks seemed to be rolled up. However, the restaurants suggest that it is a popular destination at other times. There are beautiful, richly decorated half-timbered houses that reflect the former prosperity of the merchants who grew rich thanks to its location on the Elbe. Lauenburg was once the residence of the Dukes of Lauenburg, who moved to Ratzeburg after the castle fire in 1616. A castle tower still remains and stands on the hill above the town.
Heath monasteries
To the northeast, about 15 minutes' walk from the city center of Lüneburg, is the Lüne Monastery , a former Benedictine monastery that still houses an evangelical women's monastery today. The complex is built in Brick Gothic, but has been expanded over the centuries and looks like a tiny village.
In the Lüneburg Heath there are a total of five monasteries, all of which arose during the eastern colonization in the 12th and 13th centuries and were lined up on the border of the Christianized world like pearls on a string that stretched from north to south in the east of the heather. There these desert monasteries were safe from all too frequent harassment in the Wendish border areas.
Today the monasteries are evangelical women's monasteries and carry on some ancient traditions. They consist of picturesque groupings of small half-timbered buildings, Gothic brick buildings, church rooms in Cistercian clarity with a roof turret and ogival cloisters around a quiet cloister courtyard. They are the monasteries of Walsrode , Ebstorf , Medingen , Lüne , Wienhausen . In Ebstorf you can see the largest map of the world from the Middle Ages, which was the largest mappa mundi with a diameter of 3.50 meters. However, today only a facsimile can be seen, because the original was burned during the Second World War in the archive in Hanover, where the card was taken.
The Medingen monastery has the Medingen manuscripts, a collection of fifty preserved, personally stamped prayer books that are unique in Europe and that were written and painted by Cistercian women.
In the Wienhausen Monastery there is a gothic women's choir painted with biblical motifs. The monastery is also known for its Gothic carpets from the 14th and 15th centuries.
A visit to the heath monasteries is highly recommended for an understanding of the cultural history of the Lüneburg Heath. When we were there in autumn, all monasteries had closed their doors until further notice due to the corona. But with one the next visit is on this topic.
Celle
Celle has a picturesque old town, which consists of over 400 half-timbered houses. On the western edge of the old town is the Welf (also Gulf or Guelph) Renaissance castle and behind it the castle garden.
The people of Celle are proud of their beautiful old town and I read that it is counted among the top 10 most picturesque cities in Germany. Reaching so high is daring, as there are many picturesque and well-preserved old towns in Germany. Nevertheless, Celle is well positioned and it doesn't really matter whether it is in the top 10 or not, you should definitely visit and enjoy it.
The Welfs
Brunswick, Hanover, London
Celle belonged to the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg, which arose after Otto the child, the grandson of Heinrich the Lion, bequeathed his territory to his two sons. This resulted in the duchies of Braunschweig and Braunschweig-Lüneburg. Lüneburg was the residential city of Braunschweig-Lüneburg and - as often in German history - there were disputes between the bourgeoisie of the city and the aristocratic rulers. This ultimately led to the Wells to look for a more peaceful place of residence - namely Celle. This happened in 1433. The residence in Lüneburg on the Kalkberg was razed by the bourgeoisie and the Braunschweig-Lüneburg branch of the Welfs permanently settled in Celle.
Life was leisurely there, there were no quarrels, the citizens viewed the court as an economic engine that bought their products and provided offices. The court had no excessive need for representation, so that the castle was renovated in the Renaissance style, but the people of Celle were spared a new baroque, expensive residence. There were no revolts by the citizens against the sovereigns in Celle.
Life continued peacefully until 1705 when Celle lost its status as a residence to Hanover. How did that happen?
Once again there was an inheritance: We are in 1648, Braunschweig-Lüneburg was inherited, Braunschweig-Lüneburg with residence in Celle went to Christian Ludwig, Hanover and Göttingen (the so-called Calenberg) to Georg Wilhelm. Two more brothers were to be apanaged, including the third of the sons, Ernst August, who later played a role because he took over the rule in Hanover (Calenberg) after the death of Christian Ludwig in Celle and a change from Georg Wilhelm from Hanover to Celle. This change made Hanover vacant and the third son, Ernst August got there on the throne.
Georg Wilhelm, who in the meantime resided in Celle, actually wanted to marry Sophie von der Pfalz, who was a candidate for the English royal throne. That would have been a very good match, but he fell in love with Eleonore d'Olbreuse and he was into love marriage. That is why he asked his brother Ernst August in Hanover whether he could marry Sophie von der Pfalz in his place so that the way in Celle would be free for Eleonore d'Olbreuse. So it happened - but only under the agreement that the two partial duchies with the residences of Hanover and Celle would be reunited after the death of Georg Wilhelm, under the direction of Calenberg, i.e. Hanover.
So it happened and since the death of Georg Wilhelm in 1705 Hanover became the residential city of the reunited partial duchies.
The son of Ernst August and Sophie von der Pfalz, Georg Ludwig von Braunschweig Lüneburg, became King George I of Great Britain in 1714, which was the beginning of almost two centuries of royal dignity of the House of Hanover from 1714 - 190, the age of the "Georgian era", which lasted from 1714-1837. The names Hanover and George appear in many places in America and Canada: e.g. the state of Georgia, the province of New Brunswick in Canada, Hanover Square in New York City, etc. All of this is due to the Welfs who were Kings of Britain.