Schleswig Hostein

The final stage of my swing through Switzerland, Germany & Holland was based in a small town north of Hamburg, not far from the historically-important city of Luebeck, a major player in the Hanseatic League that dominated Baltic trade for a long time. Luebeck held the salt monopoly, and is also famous as the home town of marzipan. (In the picture of the Holsten Tor – city gate – below, you can see the old salt cellars to at the bottom left of the picture, by the river. Their marzipan is both differnet and much better than the nasty fake fruits you get in many places.) As usual, a visit with my host family involved a glorious trip to see the many churches of Luebeck, and a beautiful bike ride through the yellow fields of … well, its real name in English is rape, but they’re now calling the oil that comes from its seeds canola. So you can think of the bright yellow stuff as canola flowers, or rape flowers. Up to you. Either way, here they are again many miles from Chartres, and still beautiful.