26 May: What a day!

A Wow of a day!

First up: Lutheran Mass at Sankt Michaelis, Hamburg’s most famous church and city landmark. This baroque masterpiece from 1750, affectionately nick-named “Der Michel” (“Our Mickey”) has survived war, Napoleonic invasion, a disastrous fire in 1906 and damage from Allied bombing in 1944.

Today’s service was special as it incorporated a baptismal ceremony. To celebrate, there was a Haydn Mass (Missa Brevis of St John of God, always a delight) performed by professional singers and musicians. To top it off, the nimble organist played at three of the church’s four organs, including the Grand Organ of 1962, which at the time was the biggest church organ in the world.

A moving experience, plus an auditory delight, hearing beautiful music in 3-D sound in a superb church.

Next we drove 64K to the medieval town of Lübeck , “The Queen of the Baltic”. Lübeck was the leader of the Hansa League, a medieval commercial and defensive network of merchant guilds and market towns. For 400 years Hansa shaped the trade and politics of Northern Europe.

Its memory still survives in the German airline Lufthansa-“ the Hanseatic League of the Air.”

Marie-Thérèse’s friend Petra, who lives in the centre of the Old Town (originally a fortified island in the Trave River), acted as our guide.
On our walk we found two sets of “Stumbling Stones”. These are small bronze plaques set into the footpath commemorating Jewish families living at this address who were taken by the Nazis.

First stop was lunch at Schiffergeschellschaft (Ship’s Company) restaurant, founded in 1535!
This is decorated with all sorts of nautical memorabilia. The seats (like pews) have different carved emblems. This was to ensure that crews from different ships and nationalities sat separately and didn’t get into a fight!

After our delicious meal, Petra started showing us around the picturesque streets. Abruptly the clouds that had been gathering turned into a thunderstorm. Luckily for us , Petra knew the lady on the admission desk at the famous Marienkirche (Church of Our Lady), so we made a run for it over the cobbles and dashed through the door just as rhe storm burst.

This remarkable church, built from 1265 by the citizens and governing council of this wealthy city, is 102m long, has towers 125m high, has the tallest brick vault in the world at 38.5 m (126 ft) , and covers 4,400 sq metres (47,361 sq ft).

What makes it more remarkable is that this was the first ever Gothic church built in brick. It was enormously influential, “the mother church of brick Gothic”, and set the standard for 70 other churches in the Baltic region.

Sadly, Bomber Harris of the RAF was looking for revenge targets in Germany after the Luftwaffe raid on Coventry, and on the night of Palm Sunday 1942, the church was almost completely destroyed by fire, along with most of the city centre.

The Old Town was built largely of wood and burned well.

After huge efforts, much of this superb building has been reconstructed, and in 1987 it was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.

After a pleasant break at Petra’s charming apartment nearby, we walked over the cobbles to Lübeck’s Opera House for a performance of Puccini’s La Bohème.

We enjoyed this excellent production, first class voices, good orchestra, deep feeling. It’s an affecting story that had us reaching for our hsnkerchiefs.

The population of Lübeck is 318,000. Imagine a NZ city not much larger than Wellington staging 21 first-class performances of drama, opera and modern shows a year.

After this wonderful day I could only finish with “ They drove home tired but happy.” Czytaj więcej