Hanse Festival in King's Lynn

Have been feeling under the weather these last few days with a nasty head cold. Not one to get colds that often (thankfully), but I feel very lousy when I do get one! Anyway, it disrupted our weekend of plans, first a visit to my folks in Essex and then my cousin and her family coming to stay tonight. All cancelled because of me! Nevermind, it gave me a chance for a much needed slob and rest up and also a chance to go to the Hanse Festival in King's Lynn, which we would otherwise have missed.

The festival has and had loads of activities going on to celebrate the historic links between King's Lynn and the Hanseatic League. Our visit to see the Lisa von Lubeck ship at the quayside and also some of the festival stalls only scratched the surface. I think a trip back to visit some of the other museums may be order.

There were quite a few stalls lining the river walkway and most were selling the usual kind of goods. The Continental Market always goes down well with us; we shelled out our hard earned pennies for a bumper load of stuffed olives and some fabulous French strawberry syrup which is just heaven on ice-cream (but can be used to make up juice, or as a topping on fruit - pretty versatile actually).

One of the wild bird sanctuaries was there too - Ben always takes an interest in these.

Trading of various commodities took place during Medieval times and information regarding this, together with a fabulous "how it used to look" model of the 1580's Lynn quayside, was in the Green Quay museum. Seperate to this was a large water tank showing sticklebacks and newts which fascinated Ben. The museum also had a pretty good cafe with yummy cakes that we'd all fully recommend. Whilst eating these outside and flicking all the wasps away, we watched Medieval reinactments - a bear playing the accordian and a very jolly "Italian" performer which tried extrememly hard to get his audience to participate in a couple of rather confusing puppet shows!




The reconstructed 15th Century German carvel, Lisa von Lubeck, was one of the highlights of the festival. Similar to a Hanse Kogge (or Cog), one of many types of ships used during the Hanseatic period on the Baltic and North Seas, she arrived in King's Lynn on Friday and I think we heard the cannon fire to signal her arrival from our garden! The queue was pretty long to get on board, so we gave it a miss, but it looked a fabulous vessel.


Finally a picture of Katie. I had a go at putting her hair in rags overnight as a practise for a big party next weekend. Wow - it came out brilliantly, just like a loose perm, and it's staying in really well too.