Further Groovy Travels: Northern Germany Christmas Markets

So, the next morning I had a brilliant idea. I had packed most of my belongings into a carry-on, but checked a mostly empty larger bag to bring stuff home in. Instead of dragging all of my luggage around, I decided to consolidate into my bigger bag and leave the carry-on at the hotel I'd be staying at next week in Hamburg.

The actual consolidation was a feat in the teeny tiny cabin of my room. Eventually, I got it all sorted. Set off in the early morning on the 15 minute walk to that hotel. Found it without much incident and had a bit of a struggle explaining myself to the person at the front desk. Once she got that I was checking in the next week, she had to check with her manager. Luckily, the manager was fine with this and my bag of dirty laundry and travel pillow are now safely stored in that hotel.

Got back to my room, gathered the rest of my stuff, checked out, and headed to the train station. Found out my train had been cancelled. Welcome to Germany! Luckily, the next one to Lubeck was departing in about a half hour.

Lubeck train station was actually kind of pretty and direcly across from my hotel.

I had gotten there too early for check in and dropped off my luggage. I headed off to the Altstadt.

It wasn't a long walk. The Holstentor guarding the city was soon in view.

They take their claim as the Christmas Capitol of the North very seriously. There are signs pointing to all of the markets.

Once I crossed the river around the Altstadt, I looked back at the old salt warehouses. There is a department store in there now, but it used to store a very valuable commodity...salt.

It is very pretty with lots of narrow walking streets.

Of course, there is the market. The city square contains the main market. That square is kind of small and is packed solid with different stalls.

This is the famous Niederegger shop, museum and cafe. It was a madhouse. I really tried to get a table at the cafe. I got really close, but this guy pushed in front of me while I was waiting for the ladies who got the table next to the one I found to settle in. At that point I decided that it wasn't worth the aggravation and I left.

Instead, I went outside and got mushrooms with herbs. I would later find that this is a pretty common snack found in the North. However, this is the first time I'd seen it.

I came across a little pipe and drum performance that was a lot of fun.

Then, I just wandered around the Altstadt until I was tired. I had a whole day the next day to explore, so I wasn't really trying to accomplish anything.