Lüneburg Heath

The heath village of Wilsede, a district of Bispingen with 29 inhabitants (as of 2020), is located in the heart of the Lüneburg Heath Nature Reserve and is largely closed to motor vehicles. You can reach it on foot, by bike, or by horse-drawn carriage from the hiking car parks of the surrounding villages. In the Dat ole Huus Heath Museum, you can see how a heath farm lived around 1850.About one kilometer to the southeast lies the Totengrund, a 30-hectare basin with heathland and numerous juniper bushes. Pastor Wilhelm Bode purchased it in 1906 with donations to protect it from development. Nearby rises the Wilseder Berg, at 169.2 meters, the highest elevation in the Lüneburg Heath.

The Hanseatic city of Lüneburg is located on the Ilmenau, about 50 kilometers southeast of Hamburg, and has around 80,000 inhabitants. For centuries, it was the sole supplier of salt for the North German region, making it wealthy; the saltworks only closed in 1980. Around 1300 listed brick houses tell of this heyday.Stroll across Am Sande square with its stepped and spiral gables, visit Northern Germany's largest medieval town hall, and settle down in the Wasserviertel by the Old Crane and Stintmarkt on the Ilmenau.

The HafenCity has been developing since its groundbreaking on April 9, 2001, on the former Großer Grasbrook, a port area of approximately 157 hectares, which was released from the Free Port on January 1, 2003, to allow for residential construction. Since March 1, 2008, it has been its own district. To its north lies the Speicherstadt, opened in 1888, for which the residential quarters Kehrwieder and Wandrahm were cleared starting in 1883.You'll walk across the Magellan and Marco Polo Terraces along the water, visit the International Maritime Museum in Kaispeicher B, and learn at the Speicherstadtmuseum how storekeepers stored coffee, tea, and rubber. The U4 stops at the stations Überseequartier, HafenCity Universität, and Elbbrücken.

St. Pauli, located directly on the Elbe between the city center and Altona, has been a Hamburg district since 1894. The former suburb of Hamburger Berg has borne this name since 1833. The Reeperbahn recalls the rope makers who settled here from 1633 and spun ship ropes. Today, the Kiez around Reeperbahn, Große Freiheit and Spielbudenplatz, FC St. Pauli with its Millerntor Stadium, and the harbor define the district, which is considered politically left-leaning, diverse, and tolerant.During the day, you can climb the Grüner Bunker on Feldstraße or visit Beatles-Platz, while evenings offer a choice between the theaters on Spielbudenplatz, live music clubs, and Kiez pubs. The U3 stops at Landungsbrücken, St. Pauli, and Feldstraße stations, and S-Bahn lines S1 and S3 stop at Reeperbahn station.

Hamburg, Germany's second-largest city at 1.9 million inhabitants, lies on the Lower Elbe, where the Alster is dammed in the city center to form Binnenalster and Außenalster. Its port, a global transshipment hub, shapes the cityscape from Landungsbrücken to HafenCity.Here you'll experience the neo-Gothic brick ensemble of the Speicherstadt, the Elbphilharmonie (opened 2017), the baroque Michel, and the magnificent Rathaus. Evenings, St. Pauli beckons: Reeperbahn, Große Freiheit, and Hans-Albers-Platz form the city's best-known entertainment hub.