The city of seven spires and the Hanseatic League's medieval capital — where brick-Gothic cathedrals tower over a UNESCO island Altstadt reached through Europe's most famous city gate, Thomas Mann was born into a dynasty of merchant senators, and the city's marzipan has been made in the same workshops since the 15th century
Lübeck (220,000; metro 330,000) is the largest city of Schleswig-Holstein and the former capital of the Hanseatic League — the dominant medieval trading network of northern Europe. The Altstadt (old town), set on an egg-shaped island between two arms of the Trave River, is ringed by seven brick-Gothic church towers and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (1987). The Holstentor (1478), Lübeck's twin-towered city gate, appeared on the pre-euro German 500-Mark note and is Germany's most recognised city gate.
Founded in 1143 on an island in the Trave River, Lübeck became the leading city of the Hanseatic League in the 13th century — the mercantile-diplomatic alliance that controlled trade across the Baltic and North Sea for four centuries. At its peak the League comprised over 200 cities under Lübeck's leadership; the merchant dynasties who ran those cities are the families Thomas Mann immortalised in Buddenbrooks (1901), his Nobel Prize-winning novel set in a fictionalised Lübeck. The city's marzipan (almonds, rose water, and sugar) has been produced by Café Niederegger since 1806 from a medieval…