Fahrradhaus Dreger in Haselhorst on the western outskirts of Berlin. I stopped in to repair some damage done by too many bumps over curbs, and too many rides down cobbled streets.

    They insisted on doing it for free!

That's
"Fahrradhaus Dreger",
folks

Another of the socio-economic artifacts still evident twenty years post-GDR: the towns in this part of the country seem to have very little commerce. They are typically ~ 10km apart, consist of twenty or thirty homes of farmers, with maybe a mechanic’s shop. No store, no hotels, restaurants, or gas stations. A small mall — built post-wall — in a town, say, every forty km. Very different than in a similar landscape in Bavaria.                  So...

Top:           More windmills — they're everywhere on the northern plain, and for good reason. I had an
                  unrelenting westerly headwind from Berlin right through to Rotterdam. Lots of energy there.

Bottom:       Corn. Lots of that too.

Achtung: Automatic Bollard System

I've seen this in a few European cities. It's a way to control vehicle access to a pedestrianized street. Delivery vans and service vehicles will have a key or an access card that will lower the bollard and allow them to pass. Moments later it will rise again, automatically.

My first encounter with one of these was in Bordeaux in 2005. A van had lowered the post and driven on into the street. I followed, not looking very much at where I was going, and the post rose again, directly under Vélo. I was a bit surprised.

The Rathaus, (town hall)

           Behind it, the cathedral,
            partially under wraps for restoration work.

I found Schwerin to be a very visitor-friendly town, well restored, with lots of sites, hotels and restaurants. The Tourist Office did a better-than-average job as well.

Buddenbrook House was one of my touch points. It's a museum dedicated to one of my favourite authors, Thomas Mann, and his family .

'Family' includes brother Heinrich, son Klaus, and a whole string of literati and liberal intellectuals    . But wait, there's even some Canadian content;   the youngest Mann daughter, Elizabeth, became a professor of oceanography at Dalhousie in Halifax.

The house itself was the Thomas' childhood home — it had been in the family since the 1750's — and was the setting for his novel 'Buddenbrooks' which won him the Nobel Prize.

The building is way too small for the amount of material they have to show.

So, what else is Lubeck known for?

Marzipan.

In the window of the Niederegger Cafe, undisputed masters of the delicacy for the past few centuries, marzipan models of Lubeck landmarks.

Note to architects: If you want
your Holstentor to remain upright,
build it out of marzipan.

The Lutheran bishop's palace, with the Marienkirche behind.    

One of the many good reasons to tour Germany: the quirky Art Nouveau architecture. I love these staircase windows... never seen them anywhere else.