Hanover
may have been a bit of late starter, with the city not founded until
the 12th century and not coming to prominence until the 17th, but
it has more than made up for lost time and today it is one of Germany’s
richest cities.
The story starts back in the days of the Hanseatic League,
when this north German city used its proximity to the Baltic Sea
to emerge as a serious economic player. The golden age came in the
17th century, when a complex interweaving of marriages and political
machinations in England, to avoid a Scottish Catholic monarch taking
the throne, resulted in Hanover’s royalty holding sway of
Britain. Hanoverian George I became the British king, despite the
fact that he could not speak English and chose to spend much of
his time holed up back in his native city.
By the 20th century, the British royal connection had been long
since cut and British bombers returned in World War II, to mete
out a severe beating – over 80per cent of the city centre
was flattened. Today, a painstaking reconstruction programme, somewhat
ironically instigated by the occupying Allied forces in the post-war
years, has brought back a sense of grandeur, although there are
few of the fine architectural set pieces that grace many other German
cities.
What Hanover does have, however, are first rate shopping opportunities,
excellent examples of Hanseatic red-brick churches, a brace of interesting
museums, a sprinkling of atmospheric beer halls and a string of
relaxing civic parks – the highlight of which is the Herrenhäuser
Gärten, a fittingly grandiose and expansive legacy
of its days as a royal city.
The city is well geared toward tourists and visiting businessmen
alike, with an array of hotels, an integrated public transport system
and the ‘Red Thread’ – a 4-kilometre
(3 -mile) red line that traces the way to most of Hanover’s
main attractions, with an informative handbook on sale to fill in
the blanks.
The city’s economy is dominated by the Messegelände
to the southeast, Germany’s largest, and one of Europe’s
most high-tech, show and exhibition grounds, which hauls in millions
of visitors every year, who attend the various business and leisure
events. This vast area was also home to Expo 2000,
the first World Expo ever to be held on German soil. Compared to
Lisbon 1998, the Expo was an unmitigated disaster, with visitor
numbers a fraction of those anticipated and a welter of negative
publicity. But a few years further on, it appears that the local
authorities may have been shrewd by attracting the massive state
funding that went with the project.
Hanover’s main railway station has been rejuvenated, the city
was put firmly on the map and the Expo site has become a permanent
asset, as well as another potential conference venue. The Expo site,
like the rest of Hanover, is at its best in the summer months, when
the city can see as much as seven hours of sunshine per day, with
an average temperature of 21ºC. Nevertheless, this drops to
as little as one hour of sunshine in the depths of winter and a
chilly average temperature of only 3ºC but perfect weather
for seeking refuge in the beer halls and cosy restaurants. |
