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Hannover Information Hannover owes its name to "hon overe", the high eastern bank of the River Leine. This is where the old town and a different kind of ambience begin: a mixture of times gone by and eternal youth. Restaurants with Italian, Greek and German cuisine interspersed with charming pubs. Trendy boutiques, shoe shops, jewellers and antique dealers in the narrow paved streets invite you to step inside. And every Saturday, the flea market on the banks of the Leine is at the centre of these picturesque surroundings. The Red Thread, clearly marked on the pavement, leads to famous historical buildings: the State Parliament of Lower Saxony, built in 1636 and once the home of George, Duke of Calenberg, to the reconstructed Leibniz House with its renaissance façade, formerly home to the universal scholar Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, to the Museum of History and Ballhof, Hannover's most attractive medieval secular building and nowadays a theatre. The square between the Market Church (Marktkirche) and Old Town Hall (altes Rathaus) is where the Old Town Festival is staged - and this, once again, is a very different kind of ambience. Great city with cool lashes, under which the old eyes flash": this is how the writer Karl Krolow once described Lower Saxony's capital city. The people of Hannover are generally considered to be characterised by a typical north German reserve; but at festivals and festivities they come out of their shells, and display their temperament and love of life. Young and ageless rock fans rock at open-air concerts on the Park Stage or the Expo Plaza. The top address in matters of jazz is the Jazzclub at Lindener Berg, whose traditional Jazz Festival outside the Town Hall on Ascension Day attracts its community of fans whatever the weather. Legends of jazz who come specially from all over the world drive away any sensitivity to rain or shine. The Maschsee Lake draws crowds all the year round. There are openair parties in summer, and in winter festivities on the ice with mulled wine and punch. The Maschsee Lake Festival in August has developed into a particular highlight: a gigantic party-like get-together with concerts, performance art and delicious culinary treats, it may draw as many as 250,000 visitors from near and far on a single weekend. This festival comes round every summer, at a time when the people of Hannover have still barely recovered from the nine days of the biggest Marksmen's Fair in the world and from the Old Town Street Festival. Dance your feet off until day is dawning - let's have fun! In the evening, you can paint the pub, disco and bar scene red. Whether alone, as a couple or together with a group - you will find that where evening entertainment is concerned, Hannover is the city of a thousand possibilities.
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