Germany at a Glance

24 Kunsthalle (Art Gallery) The Hamburg Art Gallery exhibits an art collection of paintings spanning over seven centuries. Because of this excellent art collection, Hamburg's art gallery belongs to the leading galleries in Germany. Its imposing and most impressive exhibition and event rooms offer a wide range of the historical old to the expanded new building, opened in 1997, which offers the latest collections of contemporary art-rang- ing from New Modernist art from 1960 onwards to the contemporary Galerie der Gegenwart. • www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de Surroundings A must-see is the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, listed by UNESCO as World Heritage because of its brick Gothic. Lübeck is the largest German port on the Baltic Sea and famous for its special sweat Marzipan, which was invented here and the Buddenbrook house, where the famous German author Thomas Mann was born. In his novel The Budden- brooks , he memorably described the lives of Lübeck merchants in the 19 th century. Further near-by cities worth a visit are Schwerin (capital of the Federal State Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and home of the fairy-tale castle – the Palace of Schwerin) and Lüneburg (along the historic salt road and Lüneburg Heath, an unspoiled nature reserve with a distinctive feature). The Altes Land is the largest fruit-growing region in Europe. Some two million fruit trees cover an area of about 170 square kilometres. The region with its typical Altländer farms and their splendid doorways is particularly beautiful during the cherry and apple blossom in May and June. • www.sh-tourismus.de • www.schleswig-holstein.de • www.reiseland-niedersachsen.de 11