HAMBURG

Hamburg is perhaps Germany’s wealthiest cities; but it is not the largest [in terms of population]. It’s economic history was built on sea trade and it has always managed to stay ahead of the game in terms of economic growth inside Germany.

     Along the Elbe to the Concert Hall perched on top of warehouses

Here we encountered our first heavy rain – not bad going inside 5 weeks! Our first port of call was to do a ‘Free’ City Tour through Sandamans. Always a good way to orient and we had done the same thing when we visited Munich. We started at the Rathaus [City Hall] having made our way from our ‘suburban’ hotel near the Langesfelde S3/S21 station. These trains took us wherever we needed to go in terms of getting into town and at 6 Euros a day pp they were good value.

The city walk took us around the central churches [eg St Peter’s Church] to  Chilehaus and other similarly named establishments that had served Hamburg in the early days of its trade development.

         Chilehaus built in the shape of a ship's bow, 1922-1924

 From the warehouses on the waterways we made our way back to the City centre and eventually meandered ‘home’ on the trains. Meals were taken at a little Café down the road from our hotel – half the price of hotel breakfast and provided all we needed. Dinners and late lunches also we took in this little, friendly and cheap suburban establishment. Food was much cheaper out here in the ‘burbs than in the city itself.

We also took an evening tour with New Europe through St Pauli and Reebersbahn  - the seedier side of town – the Red Light District [which we saw the start of without actually going into it – U18 and women are prohibited entry], the strip joints, the girly bars and the places the Beatles first played at before they became ‘big’.  This place was alive and throbbing energy – and it was only 8.00pm – we wondered what it would become like once darkness arrived sometime after 10.00pm.

There was also a church we stopped at that provided shipping containers for African refugees nestled under sleepy trees and next to a special park built on top of a concrete building where it appeared a young woman was entertaining people by reading – perhaps she was reciting poetry!

St Pauli becomes vibrantly alive at night

From the park we wandered down to the waterfront, past a U-Boat that will never operate in the Elbe despite the owner’s intentions [the river is too shallow and besides it is a hugely busy waterway linking the North Sea to central Europe and the Atlantic. No wonder Hamburg did well out of sea trade. Down to the Fishmarkt which is only able to operate for 4 hours on a Sunday morning [around 6.00am – 10.0 and from 10am] to allow people to go to Sunday church. Besides, everything else on a Sunday shuts down – too bad if you don’t have your groceries by Saturday night!

We also visited a Museum and Photographic exhibition at Kunsthalle; lunch at the edge of Binnenalster and from there to the Church of St Peter (St Petri Church) and a climb of 544 steps to its spire at 123 metres. From here we were able to get great sweeping vistas of the city.

In an attempt to go to Sunday Mass we scoped out Marie Dom – only to find it is now a permanent fair ground with the same name as the church. Not much luck there, although it was interesting to walk through the fair – free entry – in a permanent location. We did manage to find the church however, in time for Sunday High Mass.

Hamburg's Rathaus

After the Sunday Mass we idled our way down the warehouse streets to the Miniature Museum to which we had requested tickets the day before. This is a kid’s dream. Could have stayed there a lot longer than the 2 hours or so we did just watching and being mesmerised by the hugeness of miniature – Bayern; Switzerland; Austria; Berlin dioramas after the war destruction up to the erection of the Berlin Wall and its subsequent demolition. Big kids can also be easily absorbed in this Museum. And that was it! Back to our local café; and back to our hotel to prepare for the next stage of the adventure – to Jordan and Israel.