In search of... Thomas Mann in Lübeck

You won't find Venetian gondolas in the medieval German town - just plenty of pride in the Nobel Prize-winning author who was born there. Gerson Nason takes a tour

Surely Thomas Mann is most famously associated with Venice

Thomas Mann (1875-1955) wrote some of the 20th century's most distinguished fiction, including Death in Venice, The Magic Mountain, Tonio Kröger and Buddenbrooks. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. Mann was born, to a German father and a Brazilian mother, in Lübeck, 40 miles north-east of Hamburg. He left the city in 1894, when he left school.

What's so special about the place?

Dating back to 1143, Lübeck's Altstadt (old town) is a chocolate-box city of medieval cathedrals, high-gabled houses and massive gates on an island in the River Trave, close to the Baltic. Once one of the world's busiest ports, Lübeck was capital of the Hanseatic League, a loose federation of German self-governing merchant cities.

So?

Lübeck's business has always been commerce. Its legacies are Lübeck's beautiful merchants' houses and seven towering church spires.

What's this got to do with Mann?

Thomas Mann came from a long line of bourgeois merchants. Had he been a typical Lübeck merchant's son, he would have gone into the family business; however, Mann and his older brother Heinrich, also a writer, both took after their artistically inclined mother. This conflict in Mann's background is played out in his fiction, which details the agony of possessing a dual nature. "I stand between two worlds. I am at home in neither and this makes things a little difficult for me. You artists call me bourgeois, and the bourgeois feel they ought to arrest me ..." ('Tonio Kröger', 1903)

Mann also had strong homosexual leanings yet was married for 50 years, in a union which produced six children. Throughout his lifetime he engaged in passionate emotional relationships with men.

Get to the point

Mann's internal conflicts are expressed in Buddenbrooks and Tonio Kröger and several short stories, all set in Lübeck.

So I can see where Mann's stories took place and where the themes of his fiction originate?

Buddenbrooks (1902), accepted for publication when Mann was 25, chronicles the decline of a wealthy bourgeois family in Lübeck much like Mann's own family. It sold 1.3 million copies before being suppressed by Hitler in 1933. Tonio Kröger is the story of a brown-haired, dark-eyed Lübeck boy in love with his best (male) friend and also the prettiest girl in town, both blonds with blue eyes. Buddenbrookhaus (00 49 451 122 4190); www.buddenbrookhaus.de), a museum at 4 Mengstrasse dedicated to Thomas and Heinrich Mann, is in the house owned by Mann's grandparents (where Mann was a regular visitor). "The grey gabled house in which Johannes Friedemann grew up was near the north gate of the old, scarcely middle-sized merchant city. Its front door opened on to a spacious stone-paved hall, from which a stair with white wooden banisters led to the upper floors. ('Little Herr Friedemann', 1898) Two permanent exhibits on five floors – "The Manns – A Literary Family" and "Buddenbrooks – Novel of the Century" – chronicle Mann's world and are complemented by regular literary and cultural events. Open daily 10am-5pm; admission €4 (£2.75).

What else can I see from Mann's life?

Across the street from Buddenbrookhaus is the French Gothic Marienkirche (St Marian's Church) where the Mann family worshipped and where Thomas Mann as a child practised on the pipe organ. Around the corner at 10-16 Beckergrube is Theater Lübeck (updated with a 1908 façade) where Mann first heard Wagner, whose work he loved.

Side-by-side at 9-11 Konigstrasse are the Behnhaus and the Dragerhaus, two merchants' houses with 19th-century interiors combined to form the Museum fur Kunst und Kulturgeschichte (Museum for Art and Cultural History). Open Tues-Sun 10am-4pm Oct-March, 10am 5pm April-Sept. Admission €2.50 (£1.70).

Did Mann ever go to the beach?

Funny you should ask. The seaside resort of Travemünde, seven miles away on the Baltic, is the site of a number of scenes from Mann's fiction. Antonie Buddenbrook in Buddenbrooks found young love on the white sands with Morten Schwarzkopf before family obligation caused her to forge a disastrous alliance with Herr Grunlich.

What happened to Lübeck in the Second World War?

On Palm Sunday 1942 the RAF bombed Lübeck, levelling one fifth of the Altstadt. Infuriated that the Allies had bombed a so-called non-military target, the Germans retaliated by bombing Bath, Exeter, Canterbury, York and Norwich. This became known as the Baedeker Blitz after the tourist guides by Karl Baedeker.

Lübeck has repaired the damage and in 1987 Unesco declared the Altstadt a World Heritage Site. The city is traffic-calmed and a pedestrian's and cyclist's paradise. In winter the city is filled with students from the medical school and music conservatory. Concerts are held regularly. In summer Scandinavian tourists pour off the ferries.

Where can I eat?

To eat Buddenbrooks-style, try Haus der Schiffergesellschaft. It is a Renaissance-style former sea captain's house dating from 1535, at Breite Strasse 2 (00 49 451 76770). Lübeck is the birthplace of marzipan. Konditorei-Café, Niederegger, Breite Strasse 89 (00 49 451 5301 126; www.niederegger.de) has been making marzipan since 1806.

OK, how do I get there?

Ryanair (www.ryanair.com; 0871-246 0000) flies to Hamburg Lübeck from Stansted from around £54 return. Bus No 6 at the airport takes you to the Altstadt for €1.85 (£1). For accommodation, try the elegant neoclassical Klassic Altstadt Hotel, Fischergrube 52 (00 49 451 702980; www.klassik-hotel.com) or the comfortable dormitory at the Rucksackhotel Backpackers, Kanalstrasse 70, (00 49 451 706892). For more information, contact Lübeck-Travemund Tourismus (00 49 1805 882233; www.lubeck-tourism.de).