The medieval version of the EU is gorgeous and free from tourist crowds

Lubeck locals spill into streets and cafes and onto grassy riverbanks. Gabled houses and witch-hatted towers make me feel happy. Seagulls squawk their pleasure above the copper-green spires of medieval churches, and reflections of tall ship masts stripe the waters of the harbour.

I’ve washed up in Lubeck as an afterthought. Germany is one of my favourite countries, and I’ve started to pry into its lesser-frequented corners. I should never have left it so long, though: Europe’s tourist hordes and the endless trinket shops that supply them have yet to conquer Lubeck or several other charming northern cities.

Old Lubeck on the Trave River – compact and quaint.Credit: iStock

Northern Germany’s flat, breezy landscapes offer no splendour, but its cities, and especially those of the former Hanseatic League, provide one delight after another.

They don’t depend on tourism despite their historical glamour. They have universities and immigrant enclaves, harbours still tooting with tugs and container ships, and vibrant cultural lives. The old and modern fuse, and energy levels buzz.

Lubeck is particularly special. Old Lubeck, compact and quaint, is ringed by the Trave River and anchored by the grappling hooks of bridges, as if to prevent it floating off towards the Baltic Sea.

The architecture seems inspired by gingerbread, although the local speciality is marzipan. Holstentor city gate bulges and leans like a lopsided illustration from a fantasy novel. I’m enjoying the fine streetscapes, the little museums, the squares that erupt in flowers and the hum of cafe conversation.

Rostock and its Christmas markets. The city has a fusion of gothic and baroque architecture.Credit: iStock

Lubeck ganged up with nearby Hamburg in 1159 to grab a bigger share of the lucrative salt trade, and the Hanseatic League was born. The power of collective bargaining was such a success that trade expanded into timber, fur, grain and amber.

Other cities across Northern Europe, but mainly around the Baltic, joined the League, which soon became wealthy and powerful enough to run its own navy and diplomatic service. It essentially became a medieval EU.

The loose federation of independent city-states did well until the 17th century, when internal discord and the rising power of the Netherlands and England saw its power dwindle, but ties weren’t dissolved between its last three remaining members (Lubeck, Hamburg and Bremen) until 1862.

Hansa cities were run by merchants. They all have handsome layouts, brick architecture, waterfront settings (some sea, some river) and a raffish maritime atmosphere. They’re not as grand nor pompous as places run by kings, so don’t expect extravagant palaces and grand boulevards.

Yet these cities were enormously wealthy, and are crammed with fabulous Gothic churches and hospices, half-timbered mansions and giant medieval warehouses.

Rostock is a great example. It sits back from the coast on the Wamow River in a fusion of Gothic and baroque architecture. It has a big fat church hung with an astronomical clock, an old university, crooked streets from a Brothers Grimm tale, and a botanic garden.

Its jaunty seaside suburb Warnemunde is wind-whipped and refreshing. You can drink beer inside old timbered houses and watch yachts scudding on the North Sea.

Sixty kilometres west, Wismar is even better. Its courthouse is an Italian Renaissance absurdity covered in folkloric reliefs. A huge brick steeple stabs the clouds.

Wismar and a canal of the Grube River.Credit: iStock

Wismar has a brewery established in 1452 and a market square in green and pink pastels centred on an elaborate fountain that once supplied the town’s water. Most of its medieval harbour is still intact.

Yet nobody has heard of Wismar, except perhaps Swedish tourists and UNESCO, since the old town is World Heritage-listed. Few have heard of Rostock or Lubeck either. While crowds surge through the old towns of Bavaria, northern Germany slips under the radar.

Think of the Hanseatic League as a reliable brand and you won’t be disappointed. You’ll find few crowds and beautiful towns that proudly celebrate their heritage with small museums and walking routes and carefully restored architecture.

They’re all quirky, unusual places. Bremen is Germany’s smallest state, still fiercely independent, and still doing well thanks to an aeronautics industry. Its harbour changed history: some 5.5 million European immigrants set sail from Bremerhaven to the New World, a story well told in its Emigration Museum.

An old windmill in Bremen.Credit: iStock

What else? Well, Bremen town has one of the continent’s most opulent town halls, a whole Cultural Mile of art galleries, café-crammed squares and delightfully tangled alleys in the now-trendy Schnoor Quarter.

There are plenty more Hanseatic cities you’ve never heard of but will really enjoy, such as Luneburg, Quedlinburg and Stralsund. Still, I reckon the best of them all is Lubeck, first to join the League and last to leave.

In 1500, it was the second-largest city (after fellow Hanseatic member Cologne) in what’s now Germany. Make your first stop at the high-tech European Hansamuseum to trace the history of Lubeck and the Hanseatic League across six centuries.

A courtyard in Lubeck – first to join the League and last to leave.Credit: iStock

The old town has 1300 heritage-listed buildings and, although pockmarked with modern additions and busy shops, retains the structure and street layout of a medieval city. In places, it dissolves into a tangle of alleys and hidden courtyards which you could easily miss.

Look for one entrance into the medieval tangle near number 28 on Engelswisch street. You have to duck under a lintel into a slit of an alley, and soon you’ll be lost in a labyrinth. Lubeckers still live here, windows screened by lace curtains and pots of hydrangeas.

The centre of the old town is on another scale entirely. St Mary’s Church is the third largest church – including cathedrals – in Germany. The nouveaux-riches merchants of the Middle Ages wanted a fancy French design and got one with all the bells, whistles and gargoyles.

Six other huge spires thrust up through rows of grand gabled mansions. You can ascend the steeple of St Peter’s Church and squint across red-tiled roofs and flying buttresses to the river and Dutch-like landscapes beyond. Don’t miss another church property, the Holy Ghost Hospital, founded in 1227.

But Lubeck was fundamentally a trading town. The Seafarers’ Guildhall is now a restaurant hung with ship models and old lanterns. The former customs house is a pub dishing up schnitzels the size of Frisbees.

One of the oldest buildings in town, Lowen-Apotheke, has been a pharmacy for hundreds of years. The building is Romanesque on one side, Gothic on the other, but the interior startlingly modern.

This city’s maritime roots are best admired from a tour boat on the river, or from the town-gazing promenades that flank the water and lead past old salt warehouses and a corn mill. Like any Hanseatic city, you’ll enjoy charm without crowds, and scenes pretty as a medieval picture.

Five Hanseatic towns beyond Germany

Not all Hanseatic towns are in Germany, or beyond the tourist crowds. Here are some well-known and well-worth-it alternatives.

Gdansk, Poland
This impressive city preserves the Hanseatic golden age in wealthy burghers’ houses and Gothic churches, especially along Royal Road. Historical granaries and a crane line the waterfront. The Maritime Culture Centre addresses Hanseatic history and amber-trading routes. See visitgdansk.com

Riga, Latvia
This major historical centre of Baltic trade, power and religion is now the petite but attractive capital of a newish nation, lively with markets, theatres and nightlife. The Museum of the History of Riga and Navigation spans 800 years of maritime trade. See liveriga.com

Tallinn, Estonia
The old town of this Baltic capital (formerly Reval) is an impressive pile of fortified walls, towers, red roofs and church spires above a modern port and the startling Rothermann Quarter, where redeveloped factory buildings and contemporary architecture clash. See visittallinn.ee

Visby, Sweden
Sweden’s prettiest and best-preserved town started as a Viking stronghold and became a medieval trading centre on an island crossroads of Baltic shipping lanes. Pastel-coloured cottages and Gothic churches huddle inside walls protected by 44 towers. See visitsweden.com

Hasselt, Netherlands
Among many Hanseatic towns in the Netherlands that thrived before Amsterdam is this small riverside beauty with more than 70 national monuments on interlaced canals. As a medieval pilgrim centre, it also has atmospheric churches. See visithansaholland.com

THE DETAILS

FLY
Emirates flies from Sydney and Melbourne to Hamburg, a one-hour train ride from Lubeck and several other Hanseatic cities. See emirates.com

STAY
Motel One in Lubeck belies its pedestrian name to offer designer chic, a central old-town location and great breakfast. From €89 ($150) a night. See motel-one.com

The writer travelled as a guest of the German National Tourist Office. See germany.travel and luebeck-tourism.de