aLii's Qype profile

It’s a huge Apple store in the centre of Hamburg. Not much else to say really! It has free wifi of course, which is nice.

If only they’d finished it!

Even as it stands incomplete, it’s still one of the most amazing castles you’ll ever see and one of the most famous in the world.

It is of course, not a real castle, in the sense that it was never a structure of war. It’s not even that old, dating from the 1870s. Instead it was the plaything of mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria – one of the last kings of Bavaria. Was he really mad? At the very least he was very eccentric and Neuschwanstein stands as testament to this.

It’s a bit of a hike up to the castle – probably 40 minutes or so, so give yourself plenty of time if you already have a guided tour booked. It’s worth noting that you cannot explore the inside of the castle without a guided tour.

One regret that I have is that I didn’t have time to walk out to the Marienbrücke. My father actually went over instead of going on the guided tour, and the views he caught with his camera were pretty amazing.

The Nicolaikirche is the first big church that you’ll come across when walking into Lüneburg from the train station. It has the most impressive stained-glass windows in the city and also a nice little crypt area. It is however the most standard-looking of the central Lüneburg churches. The other two are much older and therefore more interesting architecturally in my opinion.

It’s a Augustiner beer hall on the main shopping street!

Beer: great
Location: good
Food/Service: ok

I’ve gotta say that my stay here was pretty great. I had a huge room with a double bed to myself in the middle of summer for a pretty reasonable price (I forget what exactly, but it wasn’t much above standard dorm prices). There’s also free wifi. Those three things together and I’m basically sold on any hostel. It is “shared bathrooms down the hall” though.

The bar downstairs was pretty busy and loud, which I guess is both a good and a bad thing. The happy hour price for the beer was pretty amazing too actually…

Yeah, pretty average shisha cafe. I wish it was better, because if it was, then I’d go a lot more often than “very rarely”.

The shisha itself is ok. The service is ok. The place is ok. Even so, if they served alcohol I might give them 4 stars, but they don’t…

Amazingly, at O2 world you get strong O2 reception that actually works! (that’s a rarity in Hamburg). I’m still unsure as to what benefit you get for walking through the special O2 entrance, but I guess there must be one. Maybe I’ll try it next time…

Anyway, back to the details of the place. It’s actually quite a nice arena. It’s very much in the middle of nowhere, but the train + shuttle bus service is pretty great, so it’s not much of a problem. Beyond that, it’s a decent sized arena, with good viewing from pretty much all seats. The bars and food areas are slightly underwhelming, but it’s not a complete rip-off and the service is pretty good. The toilets are also pretty good for such a large arena. All-in-all then it’s pretty good, 4/5.

Pons is a reasonable little bar/bistro on the edge of Lüneberg’s old town. According to the sign outside it’s the oldest continually working pub in the city, but unfortunately it doesn’t have much old-world charm inside.

They do have some pretty decent beers though and a limited vegetarian menu. There’s also a set of sofas around an open fire, which would be nice if you could get to sit there!