SUMMARY Full day in Hannover, walked 26,856 steps (10.15 miles). Walked down to the Maschsee, a big lake, to check out the location of a big multi-week drink, food and music festival currently taking place. Went from there to Herrenhäuser Gärten which is huge and spent several hours walking around. Excellent late, light lunch at Vince Restaurant - carpaccio and ravioli. Delicious! Back to the hotel to blog then to the aforementioned Maschsee Lake Festival for dinner and drinks. - Karen
DETAIL We sleep in, for us, 7:30. We have coffee in the room, out on the balcony. It’s 62° with blue skies, now, so it feels great. The view from our balcony is far but not that pretty, unless you like five story office buildings.
Before long we’re dressed and on our way. Our recent hotels all included breakfast so we did the daily feed bag strap on in the morning. Here, no, so we’re headed out for a walk and at some point something to eat. We’re headed for the Maschsee, see meaning Lake in German, I’m told. We get to the Neues Rathaus (the “New Town Hall”), which is gorgeous. It’s new like the Pont Neuf (“The New Bridge”) in Paris is new. The New Town Hall here was opened in 1913. It seems like they had some money back then!
Beyond the Neues Rathaus are gardens, lawns and a big reflecting pond. Beyond that, across the street, is the Maschsee. It’s clear there’s a festival going on here (not now, but in the evenings). We Google it and yes, it’s a big beer/wine/food/music festival. We promise to come back tonight for drinks and dinner.
We walk some more, getting to more old, impressive buildings in the old town (the Altstadt). At the BallHofPlatz we see — what else — balls. There’s a ‘famous’ fountain there comprised of three (?) balls and thus the name of the Platz (or is it the other way around). A bit further on we stop for coffee. The Germans are understandably known for their baked treats available at a Konditorei. Just looking at the sweet pastries and cakes there will raise your blood sugar.
We can’t find an open Konditorei within reasonable walking distance so we settle for a coffee shop that has a few tasty things on display. Most seem to be some combinations of flour, sugar, and cinnamon. We enjoy our ‘breakfast’ at a leisurely pace, watch the locals around us, young and old, go about their daily business, interacting with their friends and neighbors.
Back on our feet we visit the resale shop next-door. We need some dressier clothes for the last week of our trip. The store window is featuring a glockenspiel and an accordion. We able to pass on both. Upstairs there are some sports coats and dresses we might consider, if we knew our sizes. I know I’m a 42 regular in the states, but that doesn’t translate into metric. They obviously measure their jackets different as I seem to be a 52 [somethings] here. We can procrastinate on this task, so we move along.
Our next stop requires a train ride. When Angela Merkel wanted to impress then President Obama, this is where she brought him. We can see why. It’s three amazing gardens. The first one, the big garden (Den GroßeGarten?), is 120 acres, all planted. It’s been around a long time and the big trees show it. It’s a very long walk even just to go end to end and side to side, as we did. It’s lots of fun, especially in today’s lovely weather. Not all of this garden is our taste, and some area need work, but overall it’s pretty amazing. Lots of boxwood hedges in interesting patterns, and swirling into curls. The middles are all planted with roses or agapanthus or lobelia, etc.
Garden two is across the street. It’s the botanical garden. Lots of outdoor plantings and a few big greenhouses. In one of the greenhouses are scores of beautiful and bizarre orchids. Some are half the size of your littlest finger nail. Some are bright white and others are drippy black, named Dracula. There are lots of cacti. In one area the cacti have gotten so big they’ve overgrown the walkway. The curators had to rope it off for our safety. Outside acres and acres of all kinds of flowering plants and trees. A quarter mile of fuchsias alone. One giant sequoia. Lots of bamboo and mulberry. We were blown away. This is really well done, and they adding on.
We leave the gardens and hop on the train back downtown. Along the way decide to go have a late lunch. Karen chooses Vince Italian, which we saw last night. We end up getting on the wrong train and have to back track, but eventually we’re there. We order delicious carpaccio and scrumptious ravioli. Karen has water, Scott, beer. We sit in the shade, enjoy our meal and beverage, and watch the locals walk, drive and bike back and forth. It’s a great city.
After some down time at our room we head back out, this time by train, back to the Maschsee Lake Festival for more drinks and this time dinner. Karen learns this is an annual, multi-week festival and is one of the biggest of it’s kind in Germany. It’s Tuesday but there’s tons of people. You’d be excused for thinking it’s a Saturday. There’s no admission fee, so you just show up and buy your drinks and food and listen to the music.
We see people all around drinking glasses of wine, cocktails, and beer. It seems you buy them where ever and take them where ever. How does that work? We buy drinks to find out. We’re charged for the drinks, and two extra euros as deposit for the glasses. We’re given play money tokens with our drinks. “Bring this play money, and the glass back when you’re done, and we’ll give you back your two euros”. Very clever. It’s clean and stuff isn’t just left everywhere. Plus not a lot of trash to deal with!
We have cocktails and later a beer and a glass of wine. We buys some bratwurst, curry wurst, and ‘kartoffelsalat’ (potato salad). It’s fine. All the while we’re watching all the people around, and on the boats on the water.
Eventually we think we’ve had enough and start to head back. But what’s this? Trays of 10 tiny martini glasses (each maybe 1 ounce) surrounded by 10 slightly larger regular glasses (maybe 2-3 ounce). We ask and are told the small glasses get strong corn liquor and the 2 ounce glasses get your choice of beer or Fanta. The idea is that you hold both glasses in one hand, pouring the liquor into the other liquid and into your mouth simultaneously, until they’re both empty. Then? Do it again, etc. Really? That’s crazy. Luckily you can also just buy one pair of glasses rather than 10 pair so we do that. We’re not coordinated to do the “drink from two glasses at once” thing, but we do drink both and it’s scary tasty. You could get into a crapload of trouble with a tray of these.
OK, Now we’ve really had enough and head out. Along the way a booth with Aperol Spritzes catches our eye and we get two of those. When they’re done we head for home. This time we probably mean it. Anyway one train and a short walk later and we’re back at our hotel. This time no additional alcohol has been purchased.
Photos
Morning, coffee, 62 degrees, and a cool place to sit and ingest the day's news (and do Wordle). What more can we ask for. The view? Ah, heck, views are over-rated!
The "New" Town Hall. And I guess they might call that a reflecting pond. I sure would.
Alt Stadt (Old Town). Beautiful buildings. Straight roads? We don't need no stinkin' straight roads!
An enormoushly huge church with both a star of David and a cross. You go, Germans!
We've already had coffee and our morning pastries. But, damn girl, those treats in the konditorei window sure do look good!
The GroßeGarten (Big Garden). 120 acres. So big. We tried to walk a lot of it. Too much garden!
Engelsglöchchen - Angel Bells, or something like that. Pretty appropriate and pretty darn healthy.
Lots of arranged plantings. Really nice, if you like that sort of thing.
Across the street, at the botanical garden, at the snack bar, in case of spills, they have their "beware of slippery surface" warning. It's a banana. Is that great or what?
1/4 mile of fuschias? That'll do.
I think we agreed this was our "best of show" for the orchid pavilion.
Lunch at Vince Italian. So good. We promise to diet when we get home.
The party along the Maschsee goes on for 3/4 of the way around the lake. No lack of attendees.
Activities? Eating, drinking, oh, and watching the boats out on the Maschsee.
Our first to drinks. Daiquiri and mojito. Two plastic 1 euro coins, to be turned into real 1 euro coins when we return the two glasses. Bird shit already on the table for us.
More boats on the Maschsee. Many look like cars. Some look like ? cars?
Chilling on the "see"
On the walk home. Close to our subway entrance. That cool building on the right is a dental college. Great architecture.
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