Photo: Christian Wolf (www.c-w-design.de) (CC BY-SA 3.0 de)
A self-guided audio walking tour across Lübeck's old-town island, the town Henry the Lion rebuilt from 1159 and the leading city of the Hanseatic League. It starts at the Holstentor, begun in 1464, and the salt warehouses of the Salzspeicher, crosses to St Peter's and the Town Hall on the market square, and reaches St Mary's, built between 1265 and 1352, where two bells that fell in the raid of March 1942 still lie. Past the Buddenbrookhaus of the Mann family, it climbs to St James's, the church of seafarers, the skippers' guild house of the Schiffergesellschaft and the Heiligen-Geist-Hospital on the Koberg, then goes north to the Burgkloster, the European Hansemuseum and the Burgtor of 1444. Back along Königstraße come the Behnhaus Drägerhaus, the Willy Brandt House and St Catherine's, then the Günter Grass House and the courtyards of the Füchtingshof and Glandorps Gang, where people still live. It ends past St Giles's, the Carlebach Synagogue, reopened in 2021, and the St Annen Museum at the Cathedral, whose foundation stone was laid in 1173. The main station is a short walk from the Holstentor; from Travemünde allow for the train or bus back of about twenty kilometres, and from Warnemünde the ship's own excursion is the safer choice.
21 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 175 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 160 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Holstentor, Salzspeicher, St Peter's Church, Lübeck Town Hall, St Mary's Church, Buddenbrookhaus.
St James's Church, Schiffergesellschaft, Heiligen-Geist-Hospital, Burgkloster and the European Hansemuseum, Burgtor, Behnhaus Drägerhaus, Willy Brandt House, St Catherine's Church.
Günter Grass House, Füchtingshof, Glandorps Gang, St Giles's Church, Carlebach Synagogue, St Annen Museum, Lübeck Cathedral.
The western gate begun in 1464 by Hinrich Helmstede, inscribed 'Concordia domi foris pax' on its field side, now a museum of the city's history and trade.
The brick church of the council and citizens, built 1265 to 1352 on French models, where the bells that fell in 1942 still lie.
The hospital on the Koberg, with panels of the legend of St Elisabeth in its church hall and the long hall of small wooden cabins behind.
The northern gate of 1444 in black and red brick, which guarded the only land route into the city.
The courtyard Johann Füchting endowed, built in 1639 for the widows and orphans of merchants and seafarers and still lived in today.
The synagogue of 1880, desecrated in 1938 and made a sports hall, restored with traces of the destruction and reopened in 2021.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 21 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 21 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Lübeck — the Queen of the Hanse, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
21 narration points, including Holstentor, Lübeck Town Hall, St Mary's Church, Schiffergesellschaft and Heiligen-Geist-Hospital. That is about 18 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 21 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.