Honovere: High river bank

As difficult as it is slowly getting nowadays find a destination never been before in Germany, we managed to grab another great British Airways flight+hotel deal at their website to Hanover, and with it, another tick off the list. Not only just the city itself, but few other places nearby to the south of the city, all of which UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Among them, one I really wanted to visit for a long now, the Fagus Factory in Alfeld, a masterpiece of modernist architecture designed by Walter Gropius.

We knew once again this was going to be a very busy weekend packed with sightseeing as many places as we could, but with a city like Hanover this was easy. There is no need to give the city any longer than a day, and even that is actually too much. This was, unfortunately, one of the most heavily bombed cities during WWII and its destruction lead to the loss of 90% of the historical landmarks. Majority of the buildings you see today are 1950’s, ugly blocks and pastiches, but of course not everything was lost, and heavy efforts were done to salvage as much and recreate a nice old town. Surrounding this old town there are nice grand constructions that to our surprise, were not mentioned anywhere not even in the city’s “red line sightseeing route”.

The “Old Town” (Altstadt) is actually not “old”, but a redeveloped area with some 40 old original houses that were left standing after the war and grouped together here in order to give the city once again an old historical core. (more…)