Around 500 half-timbered houses from the 16th-18th centuries set the tone in Celle's historic city center, half an hour north of Hanover by car. Surrounded by extensive moors, the region around Celle is a nice spot for walks or bike rides, leading through the lowlands and wide fields to Luneburg.

Impressive house gables characterize the 1,000 year old Hanseatic town of Lüneburg, telling the stories of the former wealth of the citizens. Today, the salt factory, once Luneburg's most important source of revenue, has been transformed into the German Salt Museum. The area surrounding both Luneburg and Celle is well-known for its lush heath that is covered in purple flowers during the summer.

Duke Otto II of Brunswik-Luneburg founded Celle, now home to 73,000 people, in 1292, the year his palace was built upon which the town was oriented. As Celle was not a target for extensive destruction during the world wars, many historical buildings have been preserved. Biblical inscriptions people carved into the balconies of their houses remain from the time of the Reformation, which had already reached the city in 1527.

Baroque glory

Visitors can climb the 234 steps into the tower of the town church to get a view of the tranquil town from above. Inside the church, the sumptuous stucco works with figures and motives of plants stand-out as an unusual amount of decoration for a Protestant church. The last duke, George William, was a great fan of the baroque and commissioned an Italian artist to decorate the church accordingly.

But the nobility didn't always have the funds available for such impressive decoration. Instead they hired craftsmen to make fakes: Wolfenbuettel Palace, a half-timbered house, looks like a stone building; the alleged marble columns in University of Goettingen's festival room are made of wood and the sculptures in the Herrenhausen Gardens in Hanover were formed from sandstone instead of marble. Nevertheless, the gardens, one of a few remained baroque annexes in Germany, are well worth an excursion.

Heinrich the Lion

Thanks to its central location, Heinrich the Lion settled in Braunschweig, around 60 kilometers (37 miles) east of Hanover. A bronze lion at Burgplatz recalls his reign, as does Dankwarderode, the Romanesque palace he had built 1173, one of the few old town buildings to survive World War II bombing.

Legend has it that the scratch marks on the door to Braunschweig Cathedral, adjacent to Dankwarderode Palace, were made by a lion that Heinrich had saved during a pilgrimage and brought home. In reality, Heinrich took back to Braunschweig strong impressions from his journeys which, among others things, inspired him to have the cathedral's interior decked out with paintings from Byzantium.

A copy of Heinrich the Lion's illustrated Bible is on view in the church -- Heinrich didn't know how to read. The Herzog August Library in neighboring Wolfenbuettel has the original as part of its collection of handwritten books, the largest in northern Germany, where visitors can marvel at 500,000 books from before 1850 alone.