Quests, quests, quests. Bucket Lists and wishes, there are many but the time is limited. This year on my bucket list I wrote, one new region in Germany. The choice was either Schleswig-Holstein or Saarland, and as the shorter distance and the north are always more attractive to me we were heading to Lübeck.

I thought the city is going to be not very exciting and small, and in my head I had a plan to go to Travemünde or directly on the water. But first of all tourists. So many of them, mostly speaking Scandinavian languages. And the most popular spots like the Niederegger shop and cafe, were impossible to approach to. Probably part of the reason was the Christmas Market season, but I could easily imagine this crowd strolling around this gorgeous historic city in the summer ass well, where I definitively tend to go back in the warmer season.

The Lübeck old town is one big medieval open air museum, wherever you look it is pure beauty. It doesn’t have that typical german town look, in my eyes it was a mix of Germany, Scandinavia and Belgium in parts, and I couldn’t stop staring.

This year I visited the Christmas Market in Berlin only once, here it was impossible to skip it, as the main square and the surrounding streets were one big festivity. First we were ignoring the market, but then as we spotted that the offer differs from the one in Berlin we became more curious, and made a list of what are we going to take from the market, the day after.

First Stop: Niederegger Marzipan Store & Cafe. As I already said the crowds were crazy, luckily on the top floor in the cafe the atmosphere was pretty relaxed. They have breakfast, super great soups, and endless choice of marzipan cakes. If you get a table by the window it is great, otherwise maybe you will feel the crowds. Even though touristy I would definitively recommend it for going once. On the top floor there is a museum of how it all started, definitively worth the stop.

Our afternoon was for strolling around town, we had one mulled wine, just for the sake of warming up and nice views on one of the smaller Christmas Markets. Then well deserved rest. WE wanted to go cheap, and the cheapest option was a room in a Youth Hostel shared jsut by the 4 of us, in the very central area of the town. 35e per person. Win if you ask me.

For our dinner we were curious to discover a place that was recommended everywhere and by everyone when going to Lübeck: Restaurant Schiffergesellschaft. But I guess you don’t just show up as a group of four on a Saturday night without a reservation. So the way led us to a fish restaurant, which I think was a great choice in the end, Fangfrisch.
The restaurant is much better that it looks on photos. It has an eatery vibe, very small menu, but everything super delicious. Whatever you choose will be great. And ended the dinner with Northern German Vodka – Korn. For pure alchohol lovers

Luckily the night didn’t end here, we strolled through tinier streets with student bars, but skipped those as we are old, and ended playing Don’t get angry in a very cozy bar, Colestreet, and I think everyone should go there

Day two was originally planned for Travemünde, but as we were so in love with the city, and noticed that we havent gone through the nicest streets Hüxstraße, Fleischhauerstraße we decided to stay. Breakfast was at the Kaffeehaus Lübeck, which I would not recommend it, as they have too little service staff for the amount of tables that they have, and waiting times as no where else, there are other cool spots so go for them, then stroll around the streets, admiring every tiny house and their decoration. We ended up at the Willy Brandt Museum, he was born in Lübeck. The museum is free of charge and it is very well managed, you can learn new things even if you have a quick stroll so give it a go, and then we continued on the Christmas Market tasting route. Our favourites were, smoked salmon sandwich, Original Pork sandwich from Lübeck, Sourdough cheesy pizza and sweets called Mutzen. For more sweets to go we visited Niederegger Marzipan and Die Lübecker Marzipan-Speicher. Unfortuntely, we missed the opening hours for MEST marzipan, but that will be on our summer list.

To warm up before hitting the road we entered Kandinsky bar and had it all to ourselves, but to finish as we started, we went to the nicest Christmas market of them all, the one on the Wassertreppe Lübeck which was most probably organised by Fangfrish, and had the best fish sandwich with cranberries.

This trip showed me once again how much i like the north, and how much my heart skips a beat the closer to the north i go, so definitively very close to Hamburg on my top german cities list.

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