City

The restaurant "La Brasserie" is located in the Heidekönig Hotel Celle and was reopened in August 2020. The restaurant enchants its guests with a new, exciting concept and excellent German-Mediterranean cuisine. In La Brasserie, we place great value on fresh and regional products. In addition to the normal menu, there is also a special menu every 2 weeks, which is also published on the homepage. The new restaurant "La Brasserie" is definitely worth a stay and the very nice staff look forward to every guest.

“Where cocoa meets the grape” creates moments of pleasure. The Schokothek is a specialty shop for selected chocolates from all over the world, exclusive pralines, Franconian wine and special delicacies, as well as my brother's Franconian fruit brandies. A specialty of my house are the two salt pralines, the Salzmarie and the Sülfmeister.

Lueneburg, Celle, sights, shopping, culinary, hotels, old town, city tour

Lüneburg - Red Light District, Café BonBon, Busenklingel Lüneburg in Lüneburg Heath: where honey bees and Heidschnucke sheep wish each other goodnight. This used to go through my mind when we travelled from Berlin to Lüneburg at the start of the nineties. Over the years I grew so fond of Lüneburg that I now live in its famous Old Town. Guidebooks on Lüneburg are ten a penny - but you won't find my personal insider tips in any of them (as yet). 1. Lüneburg’s original red light district The Neue Straße in the Lüneburg old town was very lively in the 15th century. At that time, prostitution was not considered disreputable - it was considered a means to an end, namely a means to protect respectable women from being molested by men.  The small shacks in the Neue Straße are an ensemble of tiny brick cottages with a well in front. Today, the brick cottages accommodate smart flats in the old buildings, wonderful to look at. The Neue Straße is not to be missed when taking a romantic stroll through the beautiful old town of Lüneburg. Pure romance! How do I find the Neue Straße? The street Auf dem Meere starts right behind Lüneburg Town Hall. Walk down Auf dem Meere, cross Untere Ohlingerstraße and the first street on the left is Neue Straße.  2. Café BonBon - in Scunthorpeplatz Lüneburg has a large range of good Cafés and Restaurants, so it is often difficult to decide which one to frequent. However, you cannot fail with the small but excellent Café BonBon. This cosy cafe offers home-made cakes, filled rolls and sandwiches. Café BonBon epitomises the art of baking in the French style. The delectable Hansegiebel [Hanseatic gable] tartlets are particularly recommended. Café BonBon is known only to insiders at this time – but perhaps not for long. The cafe is part of the Bonbon Manufaktur [candy factory] at the Alten Kran. How do I find Café BonBon? The cafe is located in the Scunthorpeplatz, on the corner with Am Springtintgut. You will find the Bonbon Manufaktur at Lünertorstr. 1 in Lüneburg. 3. Busenklingel - in Johann-Sebastian-Bach Square, part of the Old Town Culture can also encompass a sense of humour. In Lüneburg, there is a guided tour called ‘Doing the rounds with the night watchman and his wife’. Recently, I did just that: I accompanied the night watchman through the old town of Lüneburg. The watchman recited a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in front of a house opposite the Church of St. Michaelis in Johann-Sebastian-Bach Square: Die Haustürklingel an der Wand,   der Mädchenbusen in der Hand   sind beides Dinge wohlverwandt. Denn, wenn man beide leis`berührt, man innen drinnen deutlich spürt, dass unten draußen einer steht, er sehnsuchtsvoll nach Einlass fleht...   The doorbell mounted to the wall  the bosom, neither big nor small  the hand soon feels at a light touch  from deep inside, both things as such,  an inner stirring of the bell  and on the bosom, just as well.  One knows outside there stands in wait  an eager fellow, at the gate. Translation by Herbert Nehrlich What has a girl’s bosom to do with a door bell? The watchman recited the poem in front of a house whose door bells are shaped like two breasts. Why they look like breasts is anybody’s guess: at the time of Goethe, electric doorbells had not yet been invented, so a tender touch of the bell wouldn’t have achieved anything. You had to pull the bell really hard, or twist it, to gain admittance. Treating a girl’s breasts in a similar fashion would be unlikely to achieve a similar goal. Maybe men should practise a bit? Where do I find the Busenklingel? The house with the Busenklingel is located in the street Auf der Altstadt, pretty much halfway between the streets Untere Ohlinger and In der Techt. It is directly opposite the main entrance of the Church of St. Michaelis in the Johann-Sebastian-Bach Square.---------------------------------------Has your appetite been whetted for more of Lüneburg’s oddities`? How about a pig bone in Lüneburger Town Hall? Or a pregnant house? Pig bones, Busenklingel, and good food. Are you tempted to stay a little longer in Lüneburg? Lüneburg offers unique overnight accommodation.

What is HEATH insider town?With the HEATHinsider town series we take you on an exploration tour through the towns of LüneburgHeath and give you insider tips from real Heath experts.

Nicol List was the leader of Germany’s most notorious band of robbers in the seventeenth century. On Christmas Eve 1697, List and his men crept through the deserted streets of Lüneburg’s old town, broke into St. Michaelis Church through a side door and made away with gold, silver and precious stones. Read on to find out: ·         who Nicol List was ·         how Nicol List succeeded in breaking into St. Michaelis Church ·         why this particular heist proved to be his downfall ·         what the connection was between Nico List and Friedrich Schiller’s The Robbers. Who was Nicol List? Baron Johann Rudolph von Mosel’s real name was Nicol List, and he came from Saxony. His comrades included the Hamburg seaman Christian Schwancke, the deserter soldiers Christian Müller and Andreas Schwartze, the former guard cavalrymen Jürgen Kramer and Christoph Pante, the gingerbread baker Michael Kayser from Wunstorf near Hannover, and the former military surgeon Samuel Löbel from Poland. Nicol List had been picking locks since his days as a stable boy. As a cavalryman, he was on the victorious side of the Great Elector in the Battle of Fehrbellin against the Swedes in 1675, and again with Johann Georg III of Saxony against the Turks in the Battle of Vienna in 1683. His attempt to live within the law as an innkeeper and horse trader failed because of his old comrades, who roamed the country as brigands.  List used his middle-class status as a cover and led his band of robbers to carry out some spectacular heists. In 1694, the thieves climbed into Baron von Meusbach’s castle in Braunsdorf and stole silverware and 4,000 thaler (around €120,000). By 1696, the authorities were onto him. A judge had the robber’s guesthouse surrounded in the middle of the night and woke Nicol List with a warrant for his arrest. Still in his nightgown, List wrenched a pistol from the wall, shot down two men and galloped away in the darkness. Now wanted for murder, the robber fled his usual hunting grounds and began masquerading as a baron. He looted a church in Hof, Bavaria, raided a jeweller in Altenburg, Thuringia, and robbed a district magistrate in Magdeburg.  In the spring of 1697, List travelled to Hamburg disguised as a doctor. “My name is List and I’m as cunning as they come,” the bogus doctor liked to say. List’s home-made medicines sold well and although he could have lived on that comfortably, he wanted more. Life in the Hanseatic city was expensive and he started scouting out promising opportunities for a break-in. That was when he decided to revive an old plan – the treasures of St. Michalis Church in Lüneburg. How Nicol List succeeded in breaking into St. Michaelis Church The object of his desire was a treasure of western art, the world-famous Golden Altar in the abbey church of St. Michaelis in Lüneburg. Relics and precious items were stored in the altar – a real treasure trove! When opening the altar one day to allow visitors to see inside, the sexton noticed that the lock was jammed. When he finally got the door to open, he saw that the gold, silver and around 200 precious stones had disappeared.  Nicol List and his band had left no trace. By producing a replica key, he had given a brilliant demonstration of his expertise in precision engineering. As a result, no one suspected a thing initially – and by the time the crime had been discovered a few weeks later, the loot had long since been shared between the thieves. Why this particular heist proved to be his downfall The theft makes the bandit chief famous across the land. The spoils may have brought in hundreds of thousands, but the money slips through his fingers. Nicol List is the first robber to have a wanted poster issued for him. The innkeeper, with whom the bandits stayed, comes forward after the break-in and from there, a trail leads all the way to List. Bailiffs lie in wait for him in Bavaria – they have to beat him to the ground with clubs three times before he becomes compliant. He is then transported in a cage to Celle, where the gang is publicly executed in March 1699. List displayed great courage and composure in his last hour despite knowing that a gruesome death awaited him. With eight powerful blows, the executioner first shattered his arms and legs, before beheading him with an axe. List’s body was burned to ashes and his head was nailed to the top of a pole – a grisly end for a man whose infamy will now outlive the last remains of the building. The connection between Nico List and Friedrich Schiller’s The Robbers The book about List’s trial had been reprinted six times by 1733 and practically every book about German criminal history mentions his name. Friedrich Schiller used elements from List’s life and from the proceedings in the play The Robbers (Die Räuber). Read more about #HEIDE Insider Town: Stories, insider tips and favourite sites in the Lüneburg Heath region. Go to Heide Insider Nature  Lüneburger Heide TV Find all the latest news and information on the Lüneburg Heath Facebook page

Lüneburg also has its "Elphi". Leuphana University of Lüneburg has opened the spectacular new Libeskind building.

In the Middle Ages the Hanseatic League town of Lüneburg became very rich due to salt. The only means of preservation, apart from drying, was won in the Lüneburg saltworks, known as the Sülze saltworks.

It is not only Pisa that has a leaning tower – so does Lüneburg.The oldest church in Lüneburg is St. John’s; it attracts the visitor from afar because of its 108-metre-high spire, which rises high into the sky. During construction of the spire around 1384, the tower leant 2.20 metres to the west from the vertical. It should be leaning a bit because steeples were always angled slightly into the wind, but not by so much! Even today the legend is told in Lüneburg of the architect who erected the leaning tower: after construction he saw what he had done. He climbed the stairs to the church tower and plunged in shame through a window into the depths. However, just at that moment a hay cart drove past. The architect landed softly and survived the fall. He thought to himself, "If I'm still alive after this jump, then it must be God's will that the tower is so crooked." With this certainty he wanted to celebrate the event, got drunk in a pub, fell from the bench, broke his neck and died.Existing as early as 927 as a baptistery, St. John’s church is one of the oldest in Lower Saxony. It served as a model for many hall churches in northern Germany, for example in Stendal, Brandenburg, Hanover and Tangermünde. The five-aisled hall church with almost square plan once contained 39 altars. The famous high altar with paintings by Hinrik Funhoff and the magnificent Baroque organ are definitely worth seeing. The young Johann Sebastian Bach learned to play the organ and composed with his uncle Georg Böhm, who worked from 1698 to 1733 as a cantor and composer in St. John’s church.