Hannover

On Saturday I went on a day trip to Hannover! I was not able to see everything that I wanted to because I was only there for about 5 hours. SO, like Hamburg, I'm going to have to go again at some point...

But what I did see was beautiful. As soon as I arrived with my friends (our Jacobs semester ticket also gets us to Hannover for free!) we took the first street we saw and made our way to the Opernhaus. According to my travel book I had with me, the Opernhouse was built in the mid-1800s by George Ludwig Friedrich Laves. He was Hannover's most important architect and designed the Opernhaus in a Neo-Classical fashion. The Opernhaus had some surprisingly low-priced tickets which, now that I think about it, is very encouraging for a return trip!

After our visit to the Opernhaus, we made our way down Willy-Brandt-Allee (a very important man during the Cold War period- he was the 1969-1974 German Chancellor and entered the occupied GDR from West Germany to make amends).

We finally reached the STUNNING Neues Rathaus. Situated on a vast garden, "the gigantic town hall symbolizes the lofty ambitions of the wealthier citizens at the beginning of the 20th century" (Eyewitness Travel: Germany, 444). Just look at how beautiful this building is:

I was so excited that I was able to go on the grand staircase inside! It was absolutely beautiful and I wish I could get all dressed up and attend some special event there. I was able to see that two wedding events were happening that afternoon and I even saw the bride all dressed up getting her pictures taken in the garden :)

Oh, I forgot to mention: before we arrived at the Rathaus, my friends and I popped into one of the old Churches. This Church was destroyed in both WWI AND WWII. It has not been reconstructed since:

 

 After the Rathaus visit, my friends and I really wanted to check out the Niedersӓchsisches Landesmuseum. This museum is known for its famous picture gallery, which holds German, Dutch, and Flemish medieval  and Renaissance collections such as the works of Rembrandt, van Dyck, and Durer. There was also a natural history component to the museum with special collections anywhere from indigenous Tanzanian tribal items to dinosaur bones to beautiful minerals. We were there for about 2 hours and were able to see everything. Unfortunately, we couldn't always read the captions and information for what we were looking at because 99% of the time it was written in complex German.

Besides the usual tourist-geared activities, I did manage to steal away for a few minutes and spend time in one of Hannover's parks...and children's playgrounds. Fall is indeed here :)

 

 We were very lucky to have good weather for most of our day trip. I hope I'll have the same when I go back again one day!! There is still so much more to see!