Above the Niederegger café, a small free museum displays twelve life-sized figures from the history of Lübeck and the marzipan trade — Charlemagne, an Arab spice merchant who supposedly brought almonds to the Hanse, Thomas Mann, others — every one of them sculpted from marzipan and standing in glass cases.
The room also has displays on how marzipan is made (almonds, sugar, rosewater; the proportions are the trade secret), where the almonds come from (mostly southern Spain and Sicily), and the history of the Niederegger company. Free; sweet; the obligatory stop before or after coffee downstairs.