Easter holiday - Part 2 : Ahrensburg and Lübeck

Our hosts followed up our Hamburg tour with a visit to Ahrensburg's Castle (Schloß) and then a trip to Lübeck and the Baltic coast at Travemünde.

 

Ahrensburg, a town in Schleswig-Holstein, is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, situated in Stormarn. Its population around 31,700 (2009). Its outstanding sight is the Renaissance castle dating from 1595. Other sights are the adjacent castle church with its "Gottesbuden" Almshouses. 

 

The town dates back to the 13th Century, when the Counts of Schauenburg founded the village of Woldenhorn. On the 7 June 1867 the estate village Woldenhorn became an independent Prussian country community and renamed itself Ahrensburg. It became a city in 1949.

 

 Ann with Ewan and Kirsche

 

The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League ("Queen of the Hanse") and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.  Willy Brandt (who was German Chancellor) was born here.

 

The old part of the town is an island enclosed by the Trave. The Elbe–Lübeck Canal connects the Trave with the Elbe River. Another important river near the town centre is the Wakenitz.

Around AD 700 Slavic peoples started to come into the eastern parts of Holstein which had been left by many Germanic inhabitants in the course of the Migration Period. By the early 9th century Charlemagne moved Saxons out and brought in Polabian Slavs, who were allied to Charlemagne, in their stead. Liubice ("lovely") was founded on the Trave banks about four kilometres north of the present-day city centre of Lübeck. The modern town was founded by Adolf II, Count of Schauenburg and Holstein, in 1143

 

In 1937 the Nazis passed the so-called Greater Hamburg Act, where the nearby Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg was expanded, to encompass towns that had formally belonged to the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein. To compensate Prussia for these losses the 711-year-long independence of Lübeck came to an end and almost all its territory was incorporated into Schleswig-Holstein.

 

Much of the old town has kept a medieval look with old buildings and narrow streets. The town once could only be entered by passing one of four town gates, of which two remain today, the well-known Holstentor (1478) and the Burgtor (1444).

The old town centre is dominated by seven church steeples. The oldest ones are the Lübecker Dom (the city's cathedral) and the Marienkirche (Saint Mary's), both from the 13th and 14th centuries.

 

The bell which was destroyed by British bombs in World War II

 

This shows the positions of the moon over time and hence dates for Easter for the next 50-60 years

 

Novelist Thomas Mann's house

 

The world famous marzipan shop

Lübeck is very famous for its marzipan industry, and according to local legend, marzipan was first made in Lübeck possibly in response to either a military siege of the city, or a famine year. The story, perhaps apocryphal, is that the town ran out of all foods except stored almonds and sugar, and used these to make loaves of marzipan "bread". Others believe that marzipan was actually invented in Persia a few hundred years before Lübeck claims to have invented it. The best known producer is Niederegger

 

Then on to Travemunde on the Baltic coast.

Travemünde is a borough of Lübeck at the mouth of the river Trave in Lübeck Bay. It began life as a fortress built by Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, in the 12th century to guard the mouth of the Trave, and the Danes subsequently strengthened it. It became a town in 1317 and in 1329 passed into the possession of the free city of Lübeck, to which it has since belonged. Its fortifications were demolished in 1807.

 

Travemünde has been a seaside resort since 1802, and is Germany's largest ferry port on the Baltic Sea with connections to Sweden, Finland, Russia, Latvia and Estonia. The lighthouse is the oldest on the German Baltic coast, dating from 1539.

Easter holiday - Part 1: Hamburg

Our first outing this year in our camper took us to Hamburg, via Harwich and Hook of Holland.

For the first few nights we were staying with friends in Ahrensburg, just outside Hamburg. Kirsche and Ewan were superb hosts and gave us personalised tours of the area.

Day 1 was a cycle tour of Hamburg - Ewan stayed at home for this one.

We bought a group day ticket (allowing us to travel into and around Hamburg), which included our bikes, for a total of just over 9 Euros - a bargain.

Hamburg is the second-largest city in Germany and the eighth-largest city in the European Union. The city is home to over 1.8 million people, while the Hamburg Metropolitan Region (including parts of the neighbouring Federal States of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein) has more than 4.3 million inhabitants. The port of Hamburg is the third-largest port in Europe (third to Port of Antwerp and Rotterdam), and the eighth largest in the world.

Hamburg's official name is the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (German: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg). It reflects Hamburg's history as a member of the medieval Hanseatic League, as a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire, and also to the fact that Hamburg is a city-state and one of the sixteen States of Germany.

The city takes its name from the first permanent building on the site, a fortress ordered built by Emperor Charlemagne in 808 AD. The castle was built on rocky ground in a marsh between the River Alster and the River Elbe as a defence against Slavic incursion. The castle was named Hammaburg, where burg means fortress. The origin of the Hamma term remains uncertain, as does the exact location of the fortress.

Hamburg was destroyed and occupied several times. 

In 845, a fleet of 600 Viking ships came up the River Elbe and destroyed Hamburg, at that time a town of around 500 inhabitants. In 1030, the city was burned down by King Mieszko II Lambert of Poland. Valdemar II of Denmark raided and occupied Hamburg in 1201 and in 1214. The Black Death killed at least 60% of Hamburg's population in 1350. Hamburg had several great fires.

In 1842, about a quarter of the inner city was destroyed in the "Great Fire". This fire started on the night of the 4 May 1842 and was extinguished on May 8. It destroyed three churches, the town hall, and many other buildings, killed 51 people, and left an estimated 20,000 homeless. Reconstruction took more than 40 years. 

 Hamburg Town Hall - Das Rathaus in German - seat of the Senate and Parliament of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. It was built between 1886-97 and replaced the one that was destroyed in the "Great Fire" of 1842.

 

 This is my idea of how to travel!!

 

The Atlantic Hotel was featured in the 1997 Bond movie, "Tomorrow Never Dies". There is now a "James Bond Suite" - you obviously have to order vodka martini (shaken, not stirred)

 

The Gothic Revival Church of St. Nicholas (German: St.-Nikolai-Kirche) was formerly one of the five Lutheran Hauptkirchen (main churches) in the city of Hamburg. It is now in ruins, serving as a memorial and an important architectural landmark. When Hamburg residents mention the Nikolaikirche, it is generally to this church that they are referring, and not the new Hauptkirche of St. Nicholas, which is located in the Harvestehude district.

The church was the tallest building in the world from 1874 to 1876 and is still the second-tallest building in Hamburg.

 

Kirsche and Ann on a ferry outside what will be the new opera house

Views from the ferry

 

In the West of the Elbe Beach is the “Alter Schwede” – a 217 ton heavy stone pulled out of the Elbe River. The colossus with a circumference of 19.7 meters was found during dredging work in the river in October 1999.

 

"Don't push me in!"

 

Flottbek Hockey Club - where Kirsche plays.

A thoroughly enjoyable day out in Hamburg - and we greatly appreciated the personalised tour. We celebrated with a meal at a Greek restaurant in Ahrensburg. See part two for the next stage of our tour of Germany.

Shillito Wood

Our walk this week, very ably chosen and led by Simon, was much nearer to home than previous weeks. We met at Shillito Wood - between Millthorpe and the A621 to Baslow and went on a 9 mile circuit which took in Ramsley Moor, Barbrook Reservoir, Smeekley Wood, Horsleygate, and Millthorpe before returning to our starting point via Johnnygate, Rumbling Street, Crowhole, and Barlow Grange.

 

In a little hollow by a gate at the junction of Fox Lane and Rumbling Street, there's an old stone which is a guide stoop dating from 1710. Now chipped and weathered, it showed the way west to Bakewell via Barbrook and Baslow Bar, south-east to Chesterfield via Cutthorpe or north-east to Dronfield.

 

Ramsley Moor

 

Heading towards Barbrook Reservoir

 

On our way to Barbrook we came across this sculpture from the Companion Stones - an Arts in the Peak project completed in 2010. Like the guide stoops, set up 300 years ago to help travellers across the then treacherous moors each Companion Stone bears directions, not to ancient market towns but for an equally perilous journey into the future. The stones were designed and created by poets and artists of the Peak District.

See http://www.artsinthepeak.co.uk/cs/home/GSExhibition.pdf for details of Guide Stoops

 

Barbrook Reservoir lies on Big Moor, which is the huge tract of moorland between the Owler Bar to Froggatt Road and the Owler Bar to Baslow Road. Recently the water has been drained off and the dam wall breached. This is because the reservoir has not been used as a water supply source for many years. To comply with current safety legislations, it has been necessary to drain and formally ‘discontinue' the structure to ensure that it can no longer retain significant volumes of water.

The ‘still' or pond reservoir was originally constructed by impounding the Bar Brook, which rises on Totley Moss and eventually joins the River Derwent at Baslow, by Chesterfield RDC Waterworks Department in about 1882. Subsequently, in 1908 or 1910 a new dam wall was constructed to encompass some 30 acres and hold 100 million gallons of water; at its deepest the new reservoir was 34 feet deep.

 

Smeekley Wood

 

At each end of the curved wall on this building (opposite Cordwell Barn) at head height, you can see the letter W (on a clear day and with the wind in the right direction!). This is reminiscent of the 16^th & 17^th century device to ward off witches. An alternative theory is that it is merely a mark of the Wolstenholme family who lived at Horsleygate

Horsleygate

The de Horseley family were here by 1388 and the gate is mentioned in 1494. Horsleygate Lane was part of a very old bridleway from Sheffield via Psalter Lane, Ringinglow Road, Thryft House, Whirlow Hall, Limb Lane, Dore, Old Hay, Totley and Holmesfield to the Baslow area.

 

Millthorpe - a hamlet dating back to 1487, whose name originally meant Mill in the outlying settlement

 

 

The most famous former inhabitant of Millthorpe was Edward Carpenter (29 August 1844 – 28 June 1929). He was an English socialist poet, socialist philosopher, anthologist, and early gay activist. He was instrumental in the foundation of the Fabian Society and the Labour Party and was a close friend of Walt Whitman and Rabindranath Tagore. 

As a philosopher he is particularly known for his publication of "Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure" in which he proposes that civilisation is a form of disease that human societies pass through. Civilisations, he says, rarely last more than a thousand years before collapsing, and no society has ever passed through civilisation successfully. His 'cure' is a closer association with the land and greater development of our inner nature.

His lifelong connection with Sheffield had begun during his lecturing days, and strengthened when he met Albert Fearnehough, a working class man in whose house Carpenter lodged (as well as Fearnehough's wife and family). The death of his parents in 1881/82 left Carpenter with a considerable inheritance with which he bought a 7 acre smallholding at Millthorpe. Soon after, a house was built there and in 1883 Carpenter moved in with Fearnehough and his family.

It was only after settling at Millthorpe that Carpenter really felt able to express his emotional attachments to men. He had a relationship with George Adams, who lived with his wife Lucy at Millthorpe, but this came to an end when George Merrill finally came there to live permanently in 1898.

The country retreat at Millthorpe eventually became a place of pilgrimage for large numbers of admirers. Millthorpe and its inhabitants became a symbol for the new way of life that Carpenter developed there: a 'simplification of life', manual work on the land, sandal-making, vegetarianism and the breaking down of class distinctions.

As the information board in Millthorpe indicates, Carpenter wanted to reunite people with the landscape.

 

 

 

Why use the footbridge when there is a perfectly acceptable ford to cross?

 

No trig points for Andy this week, but Steve gets in on the act with this ancient post

 

these geese are not be argued with

 

Crowhole Reservoir

 

Brian seems to have grown an additional right arm!

 

I think Stuart may need lessons in how to mount a horse

 

Back through Shillito Wood, then off to the Cricket Inn (Totley) for some Thornbridge Ale.

It's now competition time. 

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, from time to time we will have a Pareidolia competition - and today it's time for another one.

Regular readers of this blog will remember that a pareidolia is the ability of people to see pictures in the random organisations of things such as the grain in a wooden door, inkblots, or clouds. Individuals will see these things by personal interpretations of them. For instance, one person may look at a cloud and interpret a horse while another might see it as a bicycle. It will always be a cloud, but through our personal interpretations other objects can be imagined up and seen there.

The way it works is that if anyone sees a pareidolia in the photo (below) they let us know by making a comment on the blog, telling us what they can see.


Just to start the ball rolling, I will offer that I can see two rabbits (and given the time of year, they may be Easter bunnies) standing at the right hand side of the tree. What can others see?