Lübeck tastes sweet like marzipan and even has its own Marzipan Salon. On some days, you also catch a whiff of the salty seawater from nearby Travemünde, Lübeck’s port on the Baltic. The city owes its great history as a member of the Hanseatic League – the famous union of merchants and towns in the Middle Ages – as well as its prestigious epithet “Hansestadt” (Hanseatic city) to this location on the important trade routes. In the “Europäisches Hansemuseum” (European Hanse Museum), you can learn more about the Hanseatic League and a world of wealth and power, of failure and struggle, and the daily lives of the people.

However, the hometown of Thomas Mann, which provided the setting for his famous novel “Buddenbrooks”, is more than just fairy-tale, nostalgic scenery. Between the old brick walls beats the heart of an urban city. Festivals and markets, arts and crafts, boutiques and shops, restaurants, cafes, clubs, bars… a young, creative scene provides an exciting counterpoint to the witnesses of a grand past carved in stone.