The Old City and New Town Hall, Hannover, Germany

My first real day in Hannover was spent walking the old parts of the city as well as visiting the "New Town Hall" which is still over 100 years old, rather than get too carried away with a lot of writing for this one I will just post a lot of pictures which highlight the area.

This is the steeple of the market church, if you notice it is old enough that there is still a pentagram there to ward off evil, this was a long time before pentagrams were considered satanic or otherwise.

And here is the entrance way which also looks quite intimidating and evil, Ben tells me there is a much better example of a proper Gothic style church, which is a black cathedral somewhere nearby so I will go and try to take a look at that sometime soon too.

Random shot of the old city, just to show it has an old timey type feel to it.

This is basically the entrance to the old city.

And this is a fountain where you can throw in a coin and make a wish, normally speaking I would have taken this picture from the front, but there was a young couple making out and I felt like it might have been a little weird to take photos of them doing that.

It turns out Germany actually contains quite a bit of "Roman" style architecture, and historic monuments, this is because Germany was actually a part of the roman empire, and in around the 1500's declared themselves The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (which is also where the modern German Eagle comes from, the old Roman symbol)

This was an interesting addition to the wall on the Roman style building

Though it is not very clear the words are "Meine Waffe war das Lied" which translates to "My weapon was the song", there are many different names engraved around the picture one of which is Wilhelm Grimm (one of the Brothers Grimm, who happened to write The Pied Piper of Hamelin)

Hannover is also a city which grew from a medieval castle, so much of the oldest part of the city still has parts of the moat and city walls, these next several pictures show that. 

Later there are some pictures of scale models of the town at various stages which show this more clearly.

These were one of the towns gates, which were right by the bridge over the moat.

And that fairly well concludes the brief walk through the Old Town, next is the New Town Hall

The New Town Hall was opened July 20 1913

In the entrance foyer are a series of scale models showing Hannover at various points, this first model shows the city during a time where it was still largely based around the castle style, with full city walls as well as the "moat", the moat was largely a natural river which was then shaped around the city. 

By 1939 the city had grown to the point that while the city walls were still mostly intact the city itself had grown around them.

This picture is one of the hardest, and shows just how much of Hannover was destroyed during the war, the Market Church which started this blog entry had its roof destroyed, and the New Town Hall itself had most of its rear section destroyed.

And here we have Hannover mostly as it is today

These pictures are taken from the observation deck at the top of the dome, which actually requires riding an elevator which operates on a curved track (quite a unique and weird experience)

I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but this park, and this tiny little lake, they actually are probably going to be my absolute most favourite place in all of Hannover, I basically moved here because I saw pictures of this in a book, and I have to say it is totally worth it and so much more scenic and amazing in real life.

The Lower Saxony State Museum (there are arts and things afoot here, but I have not been yet)

And that wraps up Day One in Hannover! The next entry will be about the Historical Museum!

Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_roman_empire

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_Piper_of_Hamelin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_City_Hall_(Hanover)

Arriving and My Apartment

Ok after a severely emotional few days before leaving, the time finally came to get on a plane, there were tears and many tequilas which helped quite a bit since almost everything was causing me to burst into tears at that point.  The flight itself was mostly sporadic sleeping whenever possible interjected by terrible airline food occasionally and I watched Delicacy (which I had planned to watch with some friends in Sydney before leaving, and so another burst of tears)

The stopover in Singapore highlighted something which I have always believed in which is travellers karma, a long time ago while flying to Japan I was desperate for a cigarette and a kind young American gave me his entire packet since he didn't really need them anymore.  At that moment it was the grandest gesture anyone could have made.

So when I was standing alone in the bar at the top of Singapore airport having a cigarette and a beer, I saw a guy desperately trying to find enough change for a beer, I strolled up and handed him ten Singapore dollars, it was as though I had just cured him of some terminal disease but I had no real use for it after that stopover.
My travellers karma was balanced and it made me oddly happy, since I was feeling so out of place and emotional myself.

The second leg of the flight was so much longer, I would doze off for what felt like hours only to find it had really been only 15 minutes, I would refer to the flight map on the entertainment system to see how much further only to be disappointed time and again that I was not yet anywhere near Europe.

Finally, I arrived, customs was incredibly quick and I found Ben at the airport waiting for me.

So most of the day was spent getting from Frankfurt to Hannover, and then racing around trying to get me established as quickly as possible.
My PC is now back together (obviously), my phone I need to get unlocked correctly to use here, but for the most part I am settled.
I had a delicious dinner with Ben and his wife Steffi who have been absolutely amazing in helping me to get here, and also to not feel quite so alone and terrified as I might have (though I am still quite emotional and scared to be honest)

I am settled into my apartment now and unpacked my suitcases, so I thought I would post a few pictures of what that is like for those that might be curious.

So here I am... I already miss everything, I already wonder if this was the right choice, and I definitely already wish the people who mean most to me were here with me.

And just because this is revisionist history time, here it is after I had been there for a few months.

Cheap/Free Things to Do around Hannover

This is another email from my friend Ben, which is worth sharing for anyone else who might end up in Hannover. (Thanks again Ben! Assuming my visa hurries along a bit I should be there next week!)

"I was thinking when you get here, you'll want to do/see interesting stuff, but will probably be fairly poor for the first few months getting set up and so on.  So, I made a list of free or cheap stuff to do in/around Hannover:

- Hannover Old City:
Really just means wandering around the town a bit - good for a single day one weekend though.  We can head up the tower on the "new" town hall; stop at random cafes for coffee or beer; etc.

- Castle Marienburg:
Our "local castle" for Hannover.  Kind of a girly palace-y kind of castle and not as impressive as some of the more famous ones (which are all a bit further away), but pretty cool in general. 

- Wilhelmstein Fortress:
A fortress on a man-made island in a lake just a few km west of Hannover.
3 euro to take the boat across the lake to get there (and back).
There's a restaurant on the island as well, so would be good for a "lunch trip".
I haven't been there yet.
http://www.wilhelmstein.de/

- Lüneburg:
A small city between Hannover and Hamburg (closer to Hamburg).  Didn't get bombed at all during WW2, so has lots of cool old buildings and original street layout.
I've been there a few times and can recommend places to drink coffee etc.

- Hamlen:
As in, the "Pied Piper" town.  It's just south of here and has a pretty nice old city area.

- Various natureparks etc:
Steffi insisted I add this suggestion.  It wouldn't be my recommendation in general, but you might enjoy it.
(Abigail's note: I actually do really enjoy parks/gardens, so this is excellent!)

- Beergardens:
Simply sitting around in a beergarden on a summer's day can be quite nice.  Given the cost of a half-litre is around 3 euro at most of them; if you drink slowly you can waste a good few hours without
seriously spending any money.

- Others:
Take a look at http://www.tourismusregion-hannover.de/Start_en.bspx various touristy things in this region.