Visiting the Hanseatic City of Lubeck, Germany with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
I felt that I understood how the alienation of Existentialism was created in Lübeck, Germany as my husband and I stood in an empty square outside Katharenenkirche (Church of Saint Catherine) at 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning.
The church bells tolled alerting everyone in town that
service had started, and that it was time to join the community inside the
church unless you were an unbeliever. My
husband and I quickly put on our Alfred Hitchcock hat and filmed the existential
scene outside the church as the sound of the bells rolled out along the flat
land and died out in the sea.
We came to visit Lübeck, because it is famous for its
medieval brick buildings built between the 13th and 15th
centuries. The town is listed as a
UNESCO World Heritage site and is called the “queen” of the Hanseatic
League. The Hanseatic League was made up
of Northern German towns that traded with the Scandinavian countries and
Russia.
After making our travel film, my husband and I walked to the
center of Old Town. The Rathaus (City
Hall) complex borders two sides of the marketplace. The Rathaus, whose foundation was laid in 1250,
is characterized by arcaded passageways and dark glazed bricks.
When you walk under the Rathaus arcades to the Breite Stra§e
(Breite Street), you can see a beautiful stone staircase that was built in 1594
in what is called the Dutch Renaissance Style.
This staircase is reflected in the windows of a bakery
across the street, which displayed a model of the Holstentor (Holsten
Gate). The Holstentor was built between
1466 and 1478. An image of the
Holstentor used to appear on Germany’s 50 deutschmark note before the euro was
adopted in many European countries. The
Holstentor is difficult to photograph due to its location in a traffic circle.
We finished our visit by admiring the Marienkirche (Church
of Saint Mary). The steeples are truly
steep. You have to leave way backwards
to get a good shot of them. By the time
we had arrived at Marienkirche, service had let out and there were people
everywhere.
I had the sense that the people of Lübeck like going to church to see
their neighbors and have coffee and cake afterwards at the bakeries that were
open in town.
By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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| Laurent Paget Photography |
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| Laurent Paget Photography |
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| Laurent Paget Photography |
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