What to See in Lübeck - Top Sights and Attractions

13th-century symbol of the city. The Lübeck Marienkirche was built between 1265 and 1351. The Lübeck market and main parish church is located on the highest point of Lübeck's old town island, is part of the Lübeck Old Town UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the largest brick churches. It is referred to as the "mother church of brick Gothic" and is considered a major work of church building in the Baltic Sea region. St. Marien belongs to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany.

St. Mary's epitomizes north German Brick Gothic and set the standard for about 70 other churches in the Baltic region, making it a building of enormous architectural significance. St Mary's Church embodied the towering style of Gothic architecture style using north German brick. It has the tallest brick vault in the world, the height of the central nave being 38.5 metres (126 ft).

It is built as a three-aisled basilica with side chapels, an ambulatory with radiating chapels, and vestibules like the arms of a transept. The westwork has a monumental two-tower façade. The height of the towers, including the weather vanes, is 124.95 metres (409.9 ft) and 124.75 metres (409.3 ft), respectively.

St. Mary's is located in the Hanseatic merchants' quarter, which extends uphill from the warehouses on the River Trave to the church. As the main parish church of the citizens and the city council of Lübeck, it was built close to the town hall and the market.^[2]

Cathedral in Lübeck, Germany. Lübeck Cathedral is a large brick-built Lutheran cathedral in Lübeck, Germany and part of the Lübeck World Heritage Site. It was started in 1173 by Henry the Lion as a cathedral for the Bishop of Lübeck. It was partly destroyed in a bombing raid in World War II, when the Arp Schnitger organ was destroyed by fire, but was subsequently reconstructed.

It is also famous for works of Bernt Notke and Thomas Quellinus, which survived the bombing raid in 1942. The famous altar by Hans Memling is now in Lübeck's St. Annen Museum. The current church was finished in 1982.

In 1873 the Cathedral celebrated its 700th anniversary, when an offshoot of the Lutheran Memorial Beech Tree, in Steinbach near Bad Liebenstein in Thuringia, was planted in the churchyard.^[4]

Church building in Lübeck, Germany. The St.-Aegidien-Kirche or Aegidienkirche is a church building in the north German city of Lübeck, dedicated to saint Giles. It is the smallest and westernmost church in the city centre. It is first mentioned as dedicated to St Giles in 1227 - this is unusual for a north German and may link it to an earlier 1172-1182 wooden church built under bishop Henry I, formerly the abbot of the abbey dedicated to the same saint in Braunschweig. The church's coat of arms includes a "T", short for "Tilgenkark", the Low German form of the church's name, and "St Tilgen" or "St. Illigen", the Low German forms of the saint's name.

It remained in the nearby cathedral chapter's control until the Protestant Reformation, when shortly after Easter 1530 it hosted the town's first eucharist in which both elements were distributed to the people. Its pastor "Johann by der Erde" was also the city's first clergyman to marry, also in 1530. The church roof was hit by a shell during the 1806 Battle of Lübeck but it did not ignite, whilst a cannonball from the same engagement is still lodged in the wall near the north door. The area around the church was heavily damaged during the March 1942 air-raid on the city and an aerial mine destroyed historic stained glass and work by Curt Stoermer inside the church but left the exterior unaffected.^[7]

Museum in Lübeck, Germany. St. Anne's Museum Quarter was previously an Augustinian nunnery, St. Anne's Priory. Since 1915 it has housed St. Anne's Museum, one of Lübeck's museums of art and cultural history containing Germany's largest collection of medieval sculpture and altar-pieces, including the famous altars by Hans Memling, Bernt Notke, Hermen Rode, Jacob van Utrecht and Benedikt Dreyer.

These are exhibited on the building's first floor is a museum and art exhibition hall located near St. Giles Church and next to the synagogue in the south-east of the city of Lübeck, Germany.

On the building's second floor is exhibited a large collection of home decor items and interiors of different periods, showing how the area's citizens lived from medieval times up to the 1800s.

A modern addition houses special exhibits.

The museum is part of the Lübeck World Heritage site.^[8]

Theater in Lübeck, Germany. The Theater Lübeck is one of the largest theaters in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. It is managed by Theater Lübeck GmbH, a state-owned company of the Hansestadt Lübeck.

Public interest in theatrical works and opera arose in Lübeck in the early days of the Age of Enlightenment and the first opera production in the city took place on 2 June 1746 in the house of master craftsman Schröder Ecke on the Königstraße. The predecessor of the current building dates from 1752. The transition of the company to the city in the 19th century is described by Thomas Mann in his novel Buddenbrooks.

Prominent conductors that began their careers in Lübeck include Hermann Abendroth, Wilhelm Furtwängler and Christoph von Dohnányi.^[11]

Buddenbrook House - a tenement house at Mengstraße 4 in Lübeck, known for Tomasz Manna's novel. Buddenbrooks.

From 1989, one of the objects of the Hanseatic Culture Foundation of Lubelli (German. Kulturstiftung Hansestadt Lübeck). In 1993, Henry and Tomasz Mannów was opened here. The following organizations have their headquarters: Buddenbrookhaus Assistance Society (German. Förderverein Buddenbrookhaus), German Association. Tomasz Manna (German. Deutsche Thomas-Mann Gesellschaft), Associations for them. Henryk Mann (German. Heinrich-Mann Gesellschaft) and the associations. Erich Mühsama (German. Erich Mühsam-Gesellschaft). There is also a museum showing two permanent exhibitions: "Buddenbrooks - the novel of the century" and "Mannów - a family of writers".

Museum in Lübeck, Germany. St. Catherine Church in Lübeck is a Brick Gothic church which belonged to a Franciscan monastery in the name of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, seized along other property from the Catholic Church by a city ordinance drawn up by the Lutheran pastor and friend of Martin Luther, Johannes Bugenhagen, passed and implemented on May 27, 1531, as Bugenhagen had previously accomplished this in Braunschweig (on September 5, 1528, with what is considered the first ever Protestant church ordinance, the Braunschweiger Kirchenordnung and Hamburg, Lübeck.

The Church was built in the early 14th century. It is part of the Lübeck world heritage and used as a museum church and exhibition hall by the Lübeck museums since 1980.

The exhibits include a copy of Saint George and the Dragon made by Bernt Notke for Storkyrkan in Stockholms Gamla Stan, an Epitaph by Godfrey Kneller in memory of his father and another one by Tintoretto, the Resurrection of Lazarus.

Some the former altars, like Hermen Rodes St. Luke altar, are on permanent exhibit in the St. Annen Museum in Lübeck.

The facade is decorated with 20th-century clinker brick sculptures by Ernst Barlach and Gerhard Marcks.^[12]

Museum in Lübeck, Germany. The Fehmarnbelt Lightship was built in 1906–1908 at Brake on the River Weser and entered service in 1908 as the lightship Außeneider. Until 1945 it was moored at the position known as Außeneider guarding the estuary of the river Eider on the North Sea coast. In the years from 1956 to 1965 it was a reserve lighthouse in the Baltic Sea and then from 1965 to 1984 it was positioned under its present name in the Fehmarn Belt.

Today it belongs to a charitable society and its home port is the Lübeck museum port in the Hanseatic city of Lübeck, where it spends the winter months at least. The ship is preserved in working condition and during the summer it is taken to sea in order to test all facilities under sea conditions. Visits on board the lightship are permitted.^[18]