An unexpected pleasure of our long drive up from Rotterdam to Stockholm was to visit the north German/Hanseatic churches along the way; all built in brick, usually regarded as an inferior building material to stone – more domestic than monumental – but often disguised as stone in their soaring interiors, which may attest to this. I’ve never before seen such tall, narrow late Gothic windows.

Or so many wind turbines – graceful, natural, and greatly beautifying the countryside, in my view. Are there no Nimbys in northern Germany?

PS. I know there are other examples of brick Gothic, including in my own stone-poor county of Essex. But none so impressive as these.