Zone 3: Marienkirche and Speicherstadt and Kontorhaus District with

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Zone 3: Marienkirche

   Walk into the Marienkirche in Lubeck and your neck tips back without any instruction. The nave rises to a brick vault nearly forty metres above the floor, among the highest brick vaults in the world, and the whole church is a statement from the merchants who paid for it, built in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as the main church of a city that considered itself the equal of any bishop. It became the model for brick Gothic churches all round the Baltic, from Stralsund to Tallinn.

   Read the complete Zone 3: Marienkirche write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Zone 3: Marienkirche is where the day begins. Next is Wismar.

2. 2. Wismar

   Wismar is a red brick town on the Baltic, on a sheltered bay in Mecklenburg, and its story is that of the Hanseatic League, the medieval trading network of North German cities that dominated commerce in the Baltic and the North Sea. The town grew rich on beer, grain and the herring trade, and put its wealth into huge Gothic churches in dark brick, with towers that serve as landmarks at sea. Together with Stralsund it was listed by UNESCO in 2002 for the quality of its Hanseatic architecture, and the market square, one of the largest in northern Germany, is the heart of the place, with gabled houses of many centuries and a curious twelve-sided fountain house, the Wasserkunst, built in the Dutch Renaissance style in the early seventeenth century.

   Read the complete Wismar write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Wismar comes up about 69 km into the recorded legs. Next is Speicherstadt and Kontorhaus District with.

3. 3. Speicherstadt and Kontorhaus District with

   There is nowhere in Europe quite like the Speicherstadt, a whole district of warehouses built of dark red brick, rising straight out of the canals as if the water were a street. The buildings date from the 1880s, when Hamburg joined the German customs union and needed a place to store goods outside the customs zone, and they stand on thousands of oak piles driven into the soft mud. Their neo-Gothic gables, turrets and copper roofs make them look like a row of castles, and the streets between them are so narrow that you can touch both sides with outstretched hands. UNESCO recognised the district in 2015, together with the neighbouring Kontorhaus quarter.

   Read the complete Speicherstadt and Kontorhaus District with write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 195 km into the recorded legs you reach Speicherstadt and Kontorhaus District with. Next is back through Wismar.

4. 4. back through Wismar

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Wismar write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Wismar, late in the day. Next is Zone 3: Marienkirche.

5. 5. Zone 3: Marienkirche

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Zone 3: Marienkirche write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Zone 3: Marienkirche. That is the ride.