Lüneburg

Lüneburg's wealth came from a salt dome under the town, worked from the tenth century and supplying the Hanseatic herring trade through Lübeck; the salt made it one of the richest towns in northern Germany, and the money went into brick Gothic houses and a town hall with a Gothic court room. Extracting the brine dissolved the ground and caused subsidence, so streets and buildings in the older quarters visibly lean, sag and have been repeatedly propped and rebuilt. The saltworks closed in 1980. The Water Quarter around the old crane keeps warehouses, a brewery and the mill buildings on the Ilmenau.

What you actually see

• The leaning buildings - subsidence from centuries of brine extraction.
• The brick Gothic - stepped gables and the town hall's medieval court room.
• The Water Quarter - the old crane, warehouses and mills on the Ilmenau.
• The salt museum - the industry that made and undermined the town.

When to go

April to October; the town is lively in term time with its university. Museums close Mondays. Christmas markets fill the squares in December.

Honest expectations

Some leaning buildings are propped and fenced. The salt museum is modest. The town is compact and seen in a day.

Nearby

Lüneburg Heath lies south; Hamburg is northwest.