Weekend in Lübeck: Wandering by Obertrave, a unique half-tower house, and the lake view

Saturday morning I headed for Lübeck, Germany. I simply couldn’t believe my luck – the weather was going to be nice whole weekend! The hotel room was booked early in the morning, and I was going to stay in the old town. When I reached Lübeck, I did a couple of rounds, had a look at my hotel from above, and at all those majestic old churches, red-roofed buildings, narrow streets…

I looked so much forward to spend a weekend in Lübeck. Because of the COVID-19 and for personal reasons, I didn’t have a chance to travel much – and finally a weekend in such a nice town!

The flight was relatively easy, besides the headwind of 15 knots I had nothing to complain about.

I took a train – it only takes 12 minutes from the airport to the Central Station:

A short walk – and Lübeck welcomes you in with its magnificent Holstentor, known all over Europe:

Next to the Holstentor, six charming brick warehouses that were for centuries used for storing salted herring and salt when Lubeck was in its Hanseatic bloom:

It was sunny and not much wind – people were sitting everywhere, having a glass of wine or a cup of coffee… It was very tempting to join the crowd, but I was quite hungry, and didn’t want to settle for just something.

After walking around for a while, I saw a sign “Buddha Bowl” and went there. It turned out to be an excellent Asian restaurant, and it was full, both on its sunny terrace, and inside.

I had a Saigon curry with crispy duck, and realized it was long time ago, I had such a delicious Asian meal!

I couldn’t eat it all, and should had stopped earlier – but that’s another story.

Slowly wandering through the town, I continued to the direction of my hotel by a lovely street called An der Obertrave that runs along the river Trave. It was like entering a different world, with colourful houses and cobbled roads:

I often stopped and stared at all those medieval buildings. It was so nice to have the time to appreciate all their beautiful details:

Lübeck Cathedral, one of the oldest historical monuments, founded in 1173:

It has the town’s longest church – 105 meters!

Lübeck is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and there are so many interesting places in that town! One thing, I read about and wanted to see, was the only half-tower house in Lübeck, by the lake Krähenteich:

The Medieval wall from the 13th century once stretched along this whole street, so you can imagine how spectacular it  was. It was so unusually stunning that I’m going to bring 3 pictures of it here.

And from another side. I couldn’t come closer, because the residents were sitting outside, enjoying that beautiful  October day, and I didn’t want to disturb them.

The half-timbered houses were built later, in the 17th century, and the architect kept the remains of the tower. That was probably the most incredible house I’ve ever seen!

On one of the streets I stopped to take a photo of some beautiful buildings – to later find out, one of them was the hotel I was going to stay in!

It was a small, and really nice hotel. I loved my room – it was so comfortable and well-decorated. And what a wonderful view I had from my bed:

At 8 p.m. there was a kind of concert by churches that rang their bells in a beautiful way for about 10-15 minutes. It was nice to be alone abroad; this solitude time was very much needed, and I couldn’t be more happy.