Culture-lovers will be rewarded fully here. The cities Mölln, Ratzeburg, Lauenburg and Geesthacht offer a lively, urban flair.

Ratzeburg, the city on the island in the north of the Duchy of Lauenburg, stands for a colourful mixture of water sports and culture, boasting as it does top-class rowing events and impressive works by Ernst Barlach and A. Paul Weber. Mölln, the city of Eulenspiegel , is almost close enough to be seen and snuggles down among forests and lakes. The wealth of the medieval trade city on the Old Salt Route still seems present today in the splendid half-timbered façades at the historic marketplace. Lauenburg has a number of attractions revolving around ships for you: the historic paddle-wheel steamer and the Elbschiffahrtsmuseum on the picturesque Elbstrasse tell stories from the days as a great centre of shipping. The Geesthacht Museum in the Krügersches Haus has exciting exhibits between tradition and technology, between basket weavers and Alfred Nobel. Or you hike, just as Otto von Bismarck once did, between nature and culture in the Sachsenwald – the largest wooded area in Schleswig-Holstein.