Moaning out of the way.Yesterday was a visit to Lüneburg to see the Belle of Whitmore Reans,Rikky.The day had beer,fish & chips,walking,socks,ice cream,red light district,history and weird Grimmesque local customs involving,I think,adult males,bottle tops & young virgins…
First off I hopped on the train to Kiel at Hamburg by mistake but quickly realised it was wrong as even though the display said Lüneburg the actual train was down the other end of the Olympic sized platform…then the train stopped in a small station just outside Lüneburg for half hour apparently due to Polizei actions and when it pulled into Lüneburg West I stayed on thinking there was one more stop to Lüneburg Hauptbahnhof…if you call yourself “Lüneburg West” is’nt It logical to assume there’s at least one more station? There isn’t and more & more people were getting on which puzzled me just for one stop.Eventually I sussed that this was the big station…and this train was soon heading back to Hamburg,anyhoo after some frantic messages myself & Rikky bumped into each other and we walked into town…
I had seen some pics of Lüneburg on Rikky‘s posts before but it’s still hard to envisage how a place looks from isolated photos.I was surprised at how medieval the place is.Many of the buildings date back 500 years or so and I’m sure there are pedantics who will say “Um actually that’s not medieval “ but it’s the go to description of something with olde worlde charm…it looks with the denizens of Lüneburg are rightly proud of their town and take good care of it…
Rikky did the tour guide job excellently pointing out the history and the hot,or not hot,drinking dens.Even though I’d been a bit of a clueless tourist with the trains she didn’t feel the need to carry a flag on a stick for me to follow…
A detour was made for socks at C & A.I did the cliched man bit of wanting to head straight for what I needed whilst Rikky did the “ oh look they have a thing that I like over there” several times.They put the blokes section on the top floors in these shops for a reason.It’s not an accident…of course I picked up the first pack of socks and then got reminded about sock sizes( look if you’re a bloke and the socks aren’t kids socks they will fit yea?)
A few hours was spent having lunch,beer and general shooting of the breeze in a local brewery/ restaurant thingy.Very nice it was too…more walking and I got shown the Red Light District of Lüneburg.The dark seedy underbelly if you will…Imagine if there was a Disney version of Pretty Woman and this is where she‘d ply her trade.Reeperbahn or Soho it’s not…it’s Frozen on the Game( I’m copyrighting that btw) Where the dashing young prince gallantly rescues the fallen woman who,wouldn’t you know it,happens to be a princess or something.Starring Hugh Grant & Grace Kelly…
More walking around looking at beautiful buildings and their history then back into the main square where some people had scattered hundreds of bottle tops and a bloke was picking them up( I think) it was explained to me that if an unmarried man reaches 30 his friends make him do a humiliating forfeit until a young virgin shows up or something,I really don’t know so probably best to ask Rikky as German folklaw always sends me into a tailspin with It‘s complete & utter nuttiness…as far I know no virgin showed up so we got ice cream,hugged it out and I got on my train back to the big city…
I would never have known of Lüneburg‘s existence if Rikky didn’t live there.I imagine there’s loads of these small towns dotted about brimming with history.So thanks for showing me around Rikky.The hostess with the mostest…
Now I’m getting packed for a trip to Copenhagen,Oslo,Gothenburg & Odense…
Laters all…ciao.
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