Following the traces of Ancient Germany

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]Well, just to say up top, I got an A in high school German, which I probably didn't deserve then and definitely don't deserve now, but because I have some knowledge of how the language should sound, it probably makes me over pronounce everything like uh Slavish Burgval, like the nearest equivalent would be as a Spanish speaker being like Arend Castle.

[00:00:24]Well, there it is. But I was getting increasingly embarrassed that as more and more pins appeared on my Google map of Europe, Germany and pretty much everything to the north and east of there were all conspicuous by their absence. Now look, we have a limited budget to do what we do. In fact, now a budget is what an actual production company has. What we have is whatever is left over from our paycheck after a mortgage, food, petrol, and raising a toddler. However, we've been gradually rectifying this. You know, ahead of these episodes, we've got some from Denmark and Sweden. But before all of that, it was a first time in Germany, which was exciting just on the face of it. But I also had some things to see here that were uh quite specific. And to be clear, one of the main reasons I'd been to all these other places was catching a big salad of Venetian forts, Roman and Byzantine sites, all of which form something of a diagonal meridian down towards the Balkans and Anatolia.

[00:01:18]But it would be a mistake to presume that Germany is lacking in ancient places. And a large part of this trip was going to be going to locations that bring to life the communities and monuments formed by the people that lived here. Be it Slavic tribes, Vikings, Neolithic settlers, as well as medieval towns, all of the above. And that's got to tear us up for an intro.

[00:01:44]So, we are forest arctive and as well as making jungle drum and bass, we've followed ancient sites across Europe and beyond. Whether it's Neolithic standing stones, Roman arches, or Romanesque churches, if it's ancient, we're into it. So, no real footage coming in as I didn't have a window seat on the plane, but hey, I can just borrow from all the previous aerial footage I have for all the difference it makes. Unavoidably, I was in a rush to make the connection and the flight was running 40 minutes late.

[00:02:08]So, this was a nailbiter. But shot through the airport and I found the Esban just in time to make it. And I'd say we sped towards Hamburg. But no, the metro was definitely taking its time.

[00:02:19]And nope, missed my train connection by about 2 minutes. I think this was it.

[00:02:23]Sailing out of the station. Uh yeah, thanks EasyJet. That was the one connection to where I was going. If you could even just the once have a flight that actually took off at something approximating the advertised time.

[00:02:36]So I was now without a plan for the day.

[00:02:38]It was early afternoon, so I would have some time in Hamburg over the next few days, but I didn't just want a whole 10 hours in the city with nothing. That wasn't really my goal for this trip. And in the end, on pure impulse, right, Lurebec. Uh, that looks kind of cool, or at least it's it's something. There's a train leaving for there in Okay, 4 minutes. Okay, buy a ticket. And yes, right. I don't normally pick spots that impulsively. Um, but anyway, finally having a chance to breathe. I'm in Germany for the first time. How is it?

[00:03:07]It's It's kind of hard to pinpoint actually. It's different, but in ways that elude kind of easy definition.

[00:03:14]Certainly, a lot does seem almost indistinguishable. For every train or sign that highlights the contrast, there's a chunk of countryside that could just as easily be Kent. As for Lubebec, well, there's plenty of modernness here, but before long, some fairy tale central European Gothic comes into view. Okay, quick history lesson over the shots of various historic buildings. It is evident that Lubec was a thriving medieval town, but this was due in large part to being a major headquarters of the Hanziatic League, which I'm sure you're all perfectly well caught up on. And uh wait, you you don't know about the Hanziatic League? Look at this guy. He doesn't even know anything about the Hanziatic League. Yeah, I don't know anywhere near enough about them and had to do some serious catching up, so don't judge. The Hanziatic League was a network of mercantile guilds primarily around the Baltic and Northern Germany. But because these are shipping networks, they extended far beyond the cities where they were based. And while we're not right on the coast here, it's a pretty short transit up the wide estry of the river and you're off. I was actually hoping to sit down for a drink by the river, but unaccountably all bars seem to be insisting on cash only. So with only about 30 cents on me, I was forced to wander further. In so doing, past this church and had to pop in. You could tell that a good amount of the brick work was comparatively modern. And funny enough, the inside was pretty austere, even by English standards. So, more wondering and more incredibly striking architecture before I eventually happened on an ATM. And yeah, you know, through the lens of what's Germany like the first time around, it's proving hard to land on a definitive thesis. I mean, it's not all that far from just an English high street. I mean, the lights take an age to change.

[00:04:56]They have TK Maxx. Oh, they have Woolworth's here. Well, in the singular, at least just one Woolworth. Uh eventually found an unremarkable bar to sit down and get a decent pint and then stopped here for coffee. It was it was okay. Uh not the flavor profile I was expecting, actually. A lot darker, a little on the burnt side. No citrus notes to speak of. I mean, not bad. Just didn't blow me away. From there, I looped north out of the town to catch the bird tour. The light wasn't really with me. However, taking a walk down the western bank with views to the old town was probably the best choice I made all day. Was just spoiled for choice on gorgeous composition of the masts and spires against the river. Kind of got a bit of a hint of Amsterdam actually, though I've not been. So, you know, it was bliss. I took a pause to try this beer. You know, I forgot to say shopping in European supermarkets is something I relish like unreasonable amount, but in this case, the fact that this was available for about €120 was unreal.

[00:05:53]Yeah, like beers in Germany were so much cheaper than I thought. Okay, so I realize this is a bit of a swerve from what I said up top. Yeah, I know this isn't very ancient yet. That is coming.

[00:06:03]It would have been different if I've been able to make that train quick.

[00:06:07]Yeah, probably should.

[00:06:17]So yeah, I'd got way too much nice footage of Lubebec and it wasn't even a place I'd meant to prioritize. So that felt pretty amazing. More than anything, the fact I didn't actually have to hurry like usual to catch everything, but could just take my time. That felt great. I was feeling a degree of shame that I defaulted to simple English in pretty much all interactions. It's the classic language problem that even if you have a sentence all prepared like uh or well the problem with that is it invites follow-up questions for which you are wholly unprepared and usually requires your interlocutor to just save the conversation by coming down to your English level. Anyway, okay. So I decamped back to the hostel in Hamburg and had just the best evening hanging out with just randomly with this Danish guy who was also at loose end. We were talking about philosophy and software engineering. Um, plus, yeah, it just turned out everyone in the room was really great to talk to, so that was nice. Okay, then 5 a.m. start. Yeah, I was feeling that one. Got a fiery sendoff from Hamburg Central. Very dramatic skies. Change at Ludvig. Um, as well as the tiniest little train you ever did see. Then another change at Schwarin. Um, onto a bus and then finally after all that, stepping out into the sleepy town of Sternburg. It was just before 8:00 a.m. and this supermarket cafe low-key saved my life.

[00:07:37]It was pretty much just someone's nan running it behind the counter, but I had to give her like a really big smile like, "Thank you. You don't know how much difference this is making." Uh, I had to just sit and recover from the shock of taking three different transports before 8:00 a.m. But, okay, so we're in this small out of the way town in northeast Germany. You know, it it's nice to get a slice of authentic small town life, but otherwise like what on earth are we doing here? Well, after walking about an hour and a half through some rather nice countryside, which incidentally was made possible by this cycle/ footpath the entire length, if I tried to do this in Dorset, I'd probably end up walking on the verge dodging cars. I was heading from the fairly small Sternburg to the even smaller Gross Raden, which has a nice church, but little else other than Okay, look, enough teasing. This is the Slavish Bugval. It's a recreated early Slavic site in northern Germany. This is what we're here for. It's actually built on the site of the excavations in which some amazing detail of the wooden structures were possible thanks to the waterlog conditions. And this was bliss. I've chased down every place like this in the UK I can get to.

[00:08:49]Whether it's the absolute legends at Butter Farm or Jarro Hall or anywhere else that has recreated ancient houses.

[00:08:56]But this fortified settlement, yeah, it's a it's a pattern we see over and over again that because many of these structures were built in or around wetlands, quite a bit of their wooden foundations survive in the anorobic conditions. That's what you get in boggy areas where the microacteria consumes all the oxygen and it actually preserves organic material remarkably well. You can see the construction similar to a mott kind of a builtup mound projecting into the lake and linked by a causeway as well as just numerous houses and buildings of various function. This is a reconstruction of what a Slavic temple or sacred area may have looked like.

[00:09:29]Yeah. Something that was the most exciting a palisade wall.

[00:09:34]I'll just leave a moment of silence here for everyone to look left then right and uh wonder what on earth the fuss is around. Um look, let's just say this. It seems ridiculous to get on a plane and then a bunch of trains and buses and walk for an hour and a half to Germany just to see a palisade wall. I was having such difficulty in the UK trying to catch one of these. You know, I was looking for these particularly in relation to our hill fort series. Uh but also just for other things we were looking to do in the early medieval. It feels ridiculous, but there's so few if any like recreated palisade walls in the UK. I think I've discussed this before.

[00:10:11]Now, there's a larger rabbit hole here where a lot of hill forts or at least Iron Age enclosures may not have all been topped with a palisade wall. Turns out that was actually like an earlier phase bronze age thing in a lot of places. We kind of unpacked this a little better in this episode if you want to catch that. You I'm not expecting you to all understand, but please believe me. Like, one of the things I was so excited about this morning is like, "Oh my god, it's the Palisade wall." Yeah. Look, I'm I'm way down this rabbit hole already. you've you must have caught that. Um, it is what it is. I'm I'm not even remotely sorry. I guess the major thing here, you know, in Northern and Western Europe, we are much shorter on written sources than we'd like much before the 1000s. You know, Slavic history in particular from the initial migration periods. There's so much missing from the picture. So, to be bringing a community like this to life, I just wish we had more places like this. Yeah, you may have caught on the channel. We've been friends and collabing with Alex Isles for a while now. definitely go and check his channel out. And we've been talking for years about experimental and reconstructed archaeology and sort of daydream about what we'd like to do given the chance or funding. But this, yeah, getting on the plane, three trains, and a 90-minute walk, 100% worth it. Would have been worth it for just this and nothing else.

[00:11:24]But of course, there is more to come.

[00:11:26]And this on a glorious day. In fact, I was running into the classic problem that the sun was lighting up the building so brightly, it was really peeking out the highlights to an unhelpful level. And my early start did result in me having the place almost entirely to myself. Um, gross rather than not exactly being the center of the world as it is, but zipping around photographing the ramparts, the houses, the ring fortifications in stunning sunshine. Like it was hot, but more like UK levels of hot rather than the absolute melting I've received in Athens just a week earlier. Suffice to say, all of this being banked for episodes in the future, so I won't labor it here. But yeah, just left feeling on top of the world. Quick beer in the shade. felt like I'd earned that. And then the walk back. Still a gorgeous day. Saw a snack.

[00:12:08]I did take a wander around Sternberg, which was very nice, but deathly quiet.

[00:12:13]There were a couple of ice cream spots open, and that was it. Bear in mind, this is July. I was um kind of gasping for a drink, but unless I missed it, I couldn't find a single bar in the entire town. I didn't clock this until like much later. I was like, "Oh yeah, I'm in the uh former GDR, otherwise known as East Germany." This was the communist state that existed here before reunification in the 1990s. Lubec, the previous state, was just outside the East German border. In fact, it's just inside Schlesvig Hullstein, which we'll be going over more of it later. Now, while the actual divide between the East and West German states has been gone for, you know, 35 years, it's something of a favorite topic comparing one with the other across all sorts of, you know, metrics. You can pull up data and colored maps which show the continuation of a divide persisting in all manner of interesting ways. However, much as like, oh, okay, that's cool. I wasn't really on the lookout for the big like, what does this mean? And yeah, otherwise trying to draw more inferences than that just based on my short visit seems silly. Anyway, it's a twist to the trip I hadn't considered like, oh, I'm in the former GDR. That's cool. Well, retreated to a shady bench to await the return bus. Was falling asleep the whole way.

[00:13:20]Brief stop in to connect with the train, but other than a glimpse, I didn't attempt to sprint around the like 12 km round trip had somewhat taken it out of my feet already. Well, back to Hamburg.

[00:13:31]Decamped the hostel to recoup. I felt a twinge of guilt that I hadn't explored Hamburg yet. Beyond the view from our sixthstory room. Now, there's not there's not anything ancient there anymore. Not really anything truly medieval. It's almost like there was some sort of event that destroyed a lot of medieval architecture in northern Germany at some point. I mean, who's to say? If only there was some sort of history enthusiast who could shed some light on this. But since I clearly have no interest in history whatsoever, I guess it will just forever remain a mystery. Nerf n I'm just not normally big on city breaks. You know, we did do the flicks bus rampage, but places like Prague and Budapest, they do have ancient stuff at their core. So, at first, Hamburg didn't really tip its hand. I mean, the immediate vicinity of the train station, it's it's fine.

[00:14:16]However, down by the river, a series of rather pleasing vanishing points as what I'm assuming are warehouses of unusually grand proportions and style display themselves along the waterfront. I'm moving at something of a snail's pace across a pretty vast area. I wo my way down the river banks until ultimately made it to the Philarmonia building.

[00:14:34]It's pretty cool. I'm not claiming I can die happy now, but it's certainly a Hamburg signature, so that's a tick.

[00:14:40]Yeah, just wandered back. As may be apparent, while first time in Germany, the actual city of Hamburg was mainly just a jumping off point to other things. So, if I seem less than hugely excited about the city itself, yeah, it's nice. Did manage to catch a decent sunset from the window of the hostel.

[00:14:55]And yeah, I didn't really feel any regret from relaxing in the room rather than seeking some sort of night out. You know, 5:00 a.m. starts my night out. So, next morning, uh not a 5 a.m. start, in fact, props for the best. Uh popped out for a coffee. You might have noticed that's been somewhat secondary this trip. Kind of just grabbed what's available. I got a macchiato at Mutterland, but turns out it was takeaway only at this point. So, okay, short distance. This place looked good.

[00:15:18]The espresso was pretty good, truthfully. A slightly watery edge. So, coffee I encountered so far, you know, fine. Not showstopping. A lot of the places seem to only open at 9 or even 10. And I had the hostel to check out of and a train to catch. It was back to Hamburg Har and we're away this time heading due north to the town of Schlesvig. Schlesig Holstein is a region that borders Denmark in the northernmost part of Germany and there was historically some question whether or not it would actually be part of Germany. I recall this coming up in high school history there were plebbeites and such. I won't litigate it all here but it does mean that the region has a particularly unique identity in Germany and yeah particularly given where we are it's no surprise that amongst other things this really is Viking country.

[00:16:02]So, stepping off the train and hot footing it to the site to try and get there earlyish as I anticipated this one be busy with families and such. This is well goes by a couple of names. The Norse name is Hidebei. Nowadays, it's known as Hyabu, which doesn't sound very German or Danish. This is an incredible place. It's a mixture of I keep typing Norse, but that's not really correct as the Norse and the Danes were delineated as separately in the Chronicles. You know, the Vikings were not in fact a monoculture. So, for the easiest shortorthhand, we'll we'll just say Viking from here. It shaves off a bit of nuance, but you know, there we go. It's a recreated Viking settlement inside of some actual Viking earthworks from the original and also a museum and some other bits as well. It's a pretty huge site, all things added together. First of all, took a wand to the recreated village. Uh, it's just hugely satisfying to be able to bank all of this. When you're talking about vernacular architecture in Northern and Western Europe much before the 1200s, people often picture this. And much as I love the Wielded Downer Museum, this is way later and several innovations removed from this. Having footage to cut to that is far more representative of a post Roman pre-conquest settlement, at least in English context, for example. That's a thrill. And also took some time to walk at top the huge earn banks that ring the settlement. Walking the earthworks was very peaceful. They are substantial. Speaking as someone who spent more than my fair share of time walking a top Iron Age earthworks, the trees do make these shots hard to gauge, but not least considering their length.

[00:17:31]These are impressively high banks. As you'll see from reconstruction drawings, Hidebei wasn't just a few buildings. As per the reconstructed settlement, there were structures all across this internal space. This was a settlement with a significant population. Just briefly caught this. It's a runstone.

[00:17:47]Technically, this one is a recreation, but you know, great to see this. Had I had longer outside of the town a series of earthworks collectively known as the darn, it's hard to see now. The Denmark peninsula looks pretty wide. You building a wall across it would look pretty ambitious now, let alone during the Viking era. But if you change your view of the map, the water actually encroaches further in land than you first perceive. Then if you then consider that before modern land reclamation and drainage, the marshes, shallow waters, and just generally difficult to traverse lands would have made this a far more defensible proposition. You know, it's not a million miles from the fourth glide line, Edinburgh to Glasgow, where the Romans would build the Antonine wall.

[00:18:28]It's a coast to coast choke point with some fortifications and you can control the ingress north to south. Did have a quick walkthrough of the museum. Really great collection of Viking stuff there.

[00:18:38]at all. This was a very special place to visit. I know I said ancient in the thumbnail. Are people going to like haul me up on that? Like because this is, you know, 1,300 maybe 1,500 years ago. Like, oh, that's not ancient enough. Uh, 2,000 years or more or get out like whatever, man. Shut up. Ancient is a very loose concept. You know, we call a tree ancient if it's more than like 100 years old. It's close enough. I'm already just so tired of this whole thing of the thumbnail and the title being like the window to the soul. It It's just such a poor way to express whether or not a video is actually going to be good or not. So yeah, I'm bracketing all of this under ancient. You can just go ahead and sue me over that. I was making my way back to the station. Okay, now footage wise, I had quite a lot of distance to cover. We've got quite a bit of nothing at this point. Back on the train. It's only 90 minutes to Hamburg, but it dragged. I was experiencing some of the chaos you hear about on German trains with times and things getting sort of backed up. Look, I'm from England. This wasn't that bad really as delays go, but we were covering a large distance south.

[00:19:41]The eventual target was Margaborg. I'm not going to go over all the different connections we made to get down there.

[00:19:46]We were actually staying a couple more stops further on at Shernbec. And even then, small though Shernbec is, I actually had to walk a little further to the edge of town to the even smaller Felgaben. I just realized we're back in the GDR. had quite a pleasant walk in the evening. You a big end of the world skies as I approached an increasingly low-key rural suburb. My accommodation was a pleasant bed and breakfast. You know, bit of an anacronistic style I more associate with the 80s, but you know, just glad to have a bed close to where I was going. Bit of a conversation with the person who ran it. The small amount of German I had just about got me through as they didn't really have much English. Lots of smiles in the It was very sweet considering I was arriving after dark. um quiet night compared to the back and forth of the hostel. So I rose before the crack of dawn the next day as I had a 45minute walk and the sunrise was not going to wait for me. It was the funny business of skirting the edge of fields on something that was just about a foot path and I don't know how many of you already know what I'm heading to and what I'd gone to all this trouble to get to. But I made it just in time to catch the sunrise over the Rang Hilikum Pamela.

[00:20:52]Well, don't all clap at once. Yeah, this, you know, this was a place I've been like, uh, I'm never going to get to it. It's so far out of the way. The nearest airport is it's probably Berlin, but even then, it's just so removed. But instead, no, you know what? I don't care that it took four to five hours of trains and then the walking and that people will be like, um, you're not supposed to do it like that. You're doing it wrong. No, I'm just going to use one of my days in Germany to go and do this. and seeing the sun rise over the wooden stakes of the ring high pomela. This is a Neolithic okay cusp of bronze age somewhere between those two.

[00:21:28]It was rediscovered only in 1991 from aerial photography as well as the henge enclosure. Reminder, the henge is the ditch, not the upright. This then had a large number of wooden posts which have been recreated here.

[00:21:43]It's something I think about a lot. In various parts of the UK, we have stone circles, standing stones, various Neolithic monuments that have survived often because they're made of such huge individual stones that in more remote areas, it proved easier just to leave them in place rather than moving them.

[00:21:57]But this is just a fraction, a real tip of the iceberg for what the Neolithic Europeans into the Bronze Age were doing. Yeah, put it this way. It's just a massive sampling bias if we're only thinking about the Neolithic as stuff that's built in stone because so much would have been built out of wood and thatch and other more impermanent materials. Of course, we on occasion get crazy lucky with something like a scara bray. But for the most part, all their domestic structures, so their wooden buildings, whether or not it's their long hauls, a type of construction that's seen across Europe, or other structures made of wood that would have melted away in just a generation. It is an incredible joy to be at a site that brings this to life. And as far as photography goes, I could not contain my glee having just so many options to capture this at sunrise with no one else around. Now look, I realize I'm not doing anything that is wildly adventurous like spelunking in the disputed Kashmir region or anything that's going to require my parents to repatriate a body. You know, I'm not an athlete or a mountaineer. I'm not a war correspondent and I have little to no budget to do these trips. They have to be as cheap as can be. But if there's a Neolithic, a Bronze Age, a Byzantine, a Venetian monument that's worth seeing, you certainly can't accuse us of not putting in the effort to see it. And the longer I do this, there's an increasingly finite number of people who can claim to have seen as much of ancient Europe as we have. I know a handful of doing this. Yeah, big shout out to Depp. But yeah, I'm proud of what we've managed to do with no production crew, minuscule budget, and often very tight time windows in which to manage it. And that's a good time to say, you know, so much more you can catch here.

[00:23:34]Whether it's our recent episodes from Greece, seeing more of Athens, as well as some places you hear about much less frequently like Agina Island or Evia.

[00:23:42]We've got a bunch from around Italy, you know, exploring ancient places around Sicily or, you know, going to be adding Calabria to that very soon. Got a bunch from around Spain, the beautiful architecture of Alandaloo and all the incredible Roman architecture from the aqueduct to the temples. Adding some more of Northern Spain as well as more from around Granada and the south pretty soon. It's a lot more details on this soon, but we have more from Germany coming. More recreated archaeology and this time in the form of the huge number of pile dwelling settlements in the south. These are well, it's kind of the recreated archaeology we've been looking at, but it's kind of turned up to 11.

[00:24:15]So, yeah, there's loads to catch. Please do hit the bell, though. One thing we've been finding this year is that YouTube just massively isn't putting our stuff in front of people. It's this stupid problem to have, but there it is. Right.

[00:24:28]Well, this had been an incredible morning. Quick march back to Felgaban and grabbing my stuff and then trained back to Maggaborg. Given just how much of an undertaking it was to get here, I actually permitted myself some breakfast for a change. What followed is a morning of heavy drinking. Espresso shops that is. Uh the coffee was pretty okay.

[00:24:46]Again, no big standouts. One thing that I really appreciated, you know, some Gothic architecture that looked like it had been on the earth for longer than I have. I try not to be a chronological snob. My true love is pre1200's architecture and romanesque. The lack of honest to goodness medieval masonry this whole trip had been getting me down a little. Anyway, yes, Margar Cathedral has had more than enough gut punches over the centuries. It's just nice to catch the thread of the town's medieval heritage. And no matter if restored, the Romanesque side of the cloysters was just really lovely. Also caught the cleric to St. Marian which was very pretty. Some really nice details there.

[00:25:26]And um yeah, it was time for another long train journey to make the distance up back to the north, back to Hamburg.

[00:25:32]Some time to kill. I just took myself a bit of an aimless walk. Ended up in a nice Portuguese cafe. Not a whole lot to say about it. The medieval center of Margaborg. This definitely is not, you know, lake and fountain. That's cool. Oh yeah, had to put this somewhere. I'm not normally in the habit of filming in toilets, but I dipped into a mall in Hamburg just needing to take a leap. I'm just presenting this in its entirety.

[00:25:56]It's uh it's a bit overengineered, but I admire the big swing, particular for a public bathroom.

[00:26:01]Probably just going to wrap up here. So, that's quite a random way to do Germany for the first time. You know, making no attempt whatsoever to do everything or even catch the highlights really. But in so doing, we saw the big cities and the small towns, the historic towns and modern burers, the Viking heritage, the Slavic heritage, the ancient Neolithic heritage, just all of what makes Germany what it is now. And I think all things considered, considering this was basically just 4 days, I think this was pretty good innings actually and I did not wait long to revisit. We were actually back in Germany just 8 days after this on a very different trip.

[00:26:35]Having driven through Switzerland and yet this time in the south around Lake Constands, you know, that's what's coming next. If you've enjoyed the music in the background, it's ours. We make all the music for these episodes and you can catch it on bandamp.com. So if you want to support the channel, that's the place to do it. These episodes do take a while to cut together. I'm not sure I mentioned this. This is actually from 21 months ago. So yeah, if you want to see what we're doing on more of a uh weekby- week basis, follow us on Blue Sky. And as mentioned, you know, there's loads more playlists to check out on the channel. So have a look through those.

[00:27:04]And yeah, please do subscribe. And if you don't hit the bell, there's just a good chance you'll never hear from us again. So uh yeah, please do that. And I will catch you very soon.