Top 10 Things to See in Hannover, Germany That Are Not Included in the Main Tours

I have been writing a lot about Hannover, the German city that I am currently living in. I described 36 things to do in the city main tour, The Read Thread and the Herrenhausen Gardens, most popular attractions of the town. As well, I spoke about two beautiful fairytale castles near Hannover and 3 places to enjoy the wildlife and have fun with your family.

But in this article, I am going to tell you my 10 favourite places that are not included in the main tours (The Read Thread and Herrenhausen Gardens). Some are well known and some are hidden small attractions, but they are something else to do if you have a spare time.

This is my #10 thing to see in Hannover.

No, you don't have neurological problems. You see a building in a shape of a human brain indeed. Cool, isn't it? This is the International Neuroscience Institute that provides health care of the highest quality for patients with neurological disorders.

But, even though you don't need any neurological treatment, it worth going to the Rudolf-Pichlmayr-Straße 4, Hannover, to see this great and creative building.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church St. Nicolai, in Hannover Bothfeld, is a Romanesque Church, an architectural style of medieval Europe, characterized by semi-circular arches. This is my #9 thing to see in Hannover.

The original St. Nicolai Church is known since 1288. Its tower is 35 meters high and its walls are 1.7 meters thick. The nave was demolished in 1776 and replaced later by a baroque hall. But, in 1910, this hall was substituted by a Neo-Romanesque style hall. The tower remains the same from the middle ages. The interior and the decoration have Art Nouveau style.

You will find the church at the Sutelstraße 20, in Bothfeld, Hannover.

Another church on my ranking of things to see in Hannover. St. Joseph, named after Joseph of Nazareth, is a catholic parish, located at Isernhagener Straße 64, in List, Hannover. Built in 1911 and 1912, the church was designed by Maximilian Jagielski in Neo-Gothic style.

The church is close to the Vahrenwalder Park, a nice place for a picnic, sports, play with your kids and dogs or for relaxation. The neighborhood park is mainly used by the residents in the area.

One of the most curious things to see in Hannover. Even before I have noticed the building, what caught my eyes in the first place was a huge crystal chandelier hanging in the middle of the street, das Große Leuchten. The lamp by Stephan Huber was bought in 2006 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Künstlerhaus.

Built from 1853 to 1856, the Künstlerhaus was inaugurated as a Museum of Art and Science for the King George V. Like many other buildings in Hannover, the responsible for its construction was the architect Conrad Wilhelm Hase. After a while, the museum was renamed as Museum der Provinz Hannover. The house's vast collections were growing quickly and the building started lacking space. For this reason, another museum was built in the Maschparks (see Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum in this article).

The Künstlerhaus is now the seat of several institutions in the cultural industry, like:

• Kunstverein Hannover;
• Literaturhaus Hannover;
• Kino im Künstlerhaus;
• Stiftung Niedersachsen;
• Friedrich-Bödecker-Kreis;
• Hannoverscher Künstlerverein.

The Christuskirche (Christ Church) is located in the north of the city, at Conrad-Wilhelm-Hase-Platz 1. It was built between 1859 and 1864 by Conrad Wilhelm Hase, who names the square where the church is located. The Neo-Gothic brick building is the first new church of Hanover after 1747 and it was built as a residence church for the royal family, during the Kingdown of George V.

During the air raids of World War II, the church was heavily damaged. The wooden pews interior burned completely. The reconstruction started in 1951, paid with donations from the church's members.

This is my #6 thing to see in Hannover.

This is not just one thing to see in Hannover. It's almost like an entire neighborhood.

The Philosophenviertel is not really an attraction but actually part of the neighborhood of Kleefeld. My favourite residential area in Hannover! It's not the neighbourhood I live in though I would love to since it is considered one of the "most privileged living conditions" in Hannover. You can tell by the high quality of the family houses in country style.

The streets are named after philosophers like Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Arthur Schopenhauer and Baruch de Spinoza.

The Petrikirche is an Evangelical Lutheran Church, built in Neo-Gothic style, which seats in the western end of the quarter. In the beginning, it was only a chapel, built in 1873 by the architect Conrad Wilhelm Hase. In 1883, the chapel became an independent parish and decided to build its own church that became ready in 1899 and was designed by Baurat Rudolph Eberhard Hillebrand.

The church was burned in 1943, during World War II and was rebuilt a decade later, in 1953. Another 10 years passed before the tower was finished, in 1963. The church's tower is 59 meters high. Its address is Fichtestraße 2, Hannover.

It is so nice going for a walk or biking along the Mittellandkanal in Groß-Buchholz.

The Mittellandkanal is a German federal waterway with 325.3 kilometers in length, the longest artificial channel in Germany. Hannover is one of the cities crossed by the channel, going through different neighborhoods, like Groß-Buchholz.

Start your tour at the Noltemeyerbrücke, a bridge over the Mittellandkanal, built from 1997 to 2000, part of the busy Podbielskistraße.

Follow the channel until the Buchholzer Windmühle, built in 1868 from parts of a mill of the 16th Century. In 1971, it was converted into a restaurant, unfortunately, closed a long time ago.

This is something really good!

Hannover-Revue is a musical theater performance that literally walks you through the 20th Century Hannover.

The meeting point is "under the tail", in front of the Hannover Hauptbahnhof (central station). A broken time machine brings the audience to an unpredictable adventure through the decades. Along the way, we meet various Hanoverians and originals of the time that tell us their stories through dialogs and music.

The play is only in German, lasts around two hours and happens only on Fridays, according to the schedule. It ends at the Trammplatz, in front of the New Town Hall.

The Maschsee is a 78 hectares artificial lake in Hannover. It is a popular area for recreation, water sports and the most popular festival of the city, the Maschseefest.

Because I come from an island in south Brazil, this is the place I go when I miss home. It reminds me of Florianópolis somehow.

During the summer, you can make a boat trip using electrically powered vessels, swim in the bathing area and run, walk or cycle at the 6 km long route around the lake. The Maschseefest is the most popular summer festival of Hannover. The event happens around the lake and features musical performances (they also have Brazilian singers), cabaret, cuisine, salsa classes and firework.

During the winter, if the lake freezes with minimum 13 cm thickness of ice, you can ice skate and play ice hockey. Those are activities, I am looking forward to.

Located at the Willy-Brandt-Allee 5 and with admission free on Fridays, from 2.00pm to 5.00pm, this is the Lower Saxony State Museum. The museum features paintings and sculptures from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, archaeology, natural history and ethnology.

It was built to substitute the Hannover Künstlerhaus since that building was lacking space for the collections. The State Gallery features art from the 11th to the 20th Centuries including Rembrandt, Rubens and Albrecht Dürer.

A life-sized model of a dinosaur is featured at the natural history, along with 2,000 native and exotic fish, amphibians and reptiles, zoological, botanical, anthropological, geographical and geological exhibits on the primeval history of Lower Saxony's regions, including the Harz mountains, the Heathlands and the North Sea coast.

A great archaeological collection, containing over a million artifacts showing the economic and technological development of the human settlement. The archaeology department is the part that I like most. This area covers almost 500,000 years of history, from Early Stone Age.

The museum also features an ethnological collection and hosts temporary exhibitions.

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Love,

Dani Tabalipa