Home Page                      Hamburg Pictures

As they say "Getting there can be half the fun" and in this case it was. There are a variety of different train types throughout the country. IC-Inter Country, IR-Inter Region, ICE-Inter Country Express, Thalys – Inter Country High Speed, naturally the DB local trains and a new one for us this weekend, the Met- Metropolitan. The Metropolitan has club cars and a first class service consisting of catered meal, beverages, stereo and English, (read my lips) English movies you play on your personal DVD player. At this point of the trip, Jim would have booked passage on this train just for the movie. The inside of the train is a beautiful lighted wood with silver trim and black leather seats. I would tell you what we had to eat but I’m not too sure what it was. So there!!!! There is a lot to be said for the sandwich you make and put in your backpack, you know what you put in it. It was a delightful experience.

Hamburg is Germany’s biggest industrial city and although its center was totally destroyed in the Great Fire of 1842 and again by bombing in 1943, it is an extraordinary beautiful city and definitely worth a stop on your schedule. It has a population of about 1.8 million people with an influx of about 150,000 visitors each day. There are a total of 2,321 bridges over the various waterways, which consist of the Elbe and the Alster (which is an artificial lake in the middle of the city).

The mainline station (train station) plays a big part in the overall structure of Hamburg. It has the largest free span roof of any railway station in Germany. Jim tried to get a couple of pictures but they may not do it justice. As I have told you before, shops must close in the Galleria’s at 4:00PM on Saturday due to labor laws but for some reason, these laws don’t apply in the train station. Therefore there are lots of restaurants, kiosks, shops that are particular popular because they can stay open longer in the evenings and the weekends.

Just outside of the train station is the Monckenbergstrasse, which is the shopping street with the highest level of turnover anywhere in Hamburg. The locals call it the "Boulevard of Shopping Dreams" which takes in a quarter of a million visitors every day. (According to the chamber of commerce, you do the math).

The original town hall was blown up during the Great Fire to save the buildings/houses behind it, which then necessitated building a new one. The new town hall took 11 years to build and because it sits on a marsh site, it stands on 4,000 oak piles. It survived major damage during the allied bombings and is definitely worth a visit. The locals brag that it has 6 more rooms than Buckingham Palace. Ceilings reflect monumental frescos on the ceilings.

The homes along the Alster are some of the most beautiful homes you could see anywhere. Since Hamburg is such an industrial city, it has some of the wealthiest families here as well as many artists and performers. This is in direct contrast to the Krameramtswohnungen section, which contains the almshouses built in the 17^th century for the widows of small traders. There is a long passage, which is framed by close huddled half-timbered cottages, which were a donation made by the Krameramt. Today they are the last row of continuous houses dating from that time.

The Reeperbahn is probably Germany’s most famous street and is the center of Hamburg’s night life. The police do not impose any closing hours in this area. This area contains everything from the theater where the musical Cats has been running for years to theaters for cabaret and variety acts. The St. Pauli Theater here is 150 years old and presents folk art plays. All along the "Miles of Sin" as this area is called are bars, taverns, sex cinemas, peep shows and in fact everything that any decent red light district ought to be able to offer.

It was good that we saw all of these things on Saturday because come Sunday, the sun was gone the wind was up and moving. It was incredibly cold!!!!! That wind whipping across the water coupled with our little windbreakers brought tears to your eyes.

Hamburg’s oldest market is the St. Pauli Fischmarkt, which is only opened on Sunday’s and only until 10:00 AM. In the summer it starts at 05:00. The fish auction hall now hosts breakfast, bands and a general overall feeling of a party even at that time of the day. Near the fish auction hall there are all sorts of things on sale, antiques, fish of every variety, vegetables etc. Our major purchase was a cap for Jim. Now, I would never say his little baldhead was cold but the area up there where the hair is sparse, was cold. As it gets closer and closer to 10:00, each vendor tries to out scream their prices over the other vendors. At one point we saw two people up on a flat bed and at the time I thought they were selling baskets. They took the new baskets out of their paper wrappings and as they praised their value, one lady was putting pineapples, grapes, bananas and all sorts of vegetables in her basket. I thought she was showing everyone how much it would hold. Someone bought it, basket, fruit, vegetables and all. This is where not understanding the language is definitely a handicap.

We walked from there down toward the docks. I can’t emphasize how cold it was often enough. We had decided to take a harbor tour and I let the cold get to me and went for the first one that advertised a heated tour. I didn’t ask the other question, "Is English spoken". We had a marvelous warm tour of some of the canals, locks and a running dialogue in German. We still can’t figure out if it was a circle tour and we went through a set of locks to get out of the inner canals, why didn’t you have to go through another set to get back into the inner canals. It’s one of those things you ponder later. One of the things we did see that makes you a little homesick was the Mississippi Queen, a replica of what you would expect out of New Orleans. I’m not kidding, picture on the web site to prove me out. 

From the tour, we wandered down to the Speicherstadt or "city of warehouses". All goods landing arriving here are landed customs-free so even a casual visitor is subject to customs regulations. The brick architecture of these buildings is amazing. These storage buildings could be approached from the rear by barges and from the front by horse drawn or railway wagons. Some of these warehouses have been converted to museums or house art exhibits but others still are very much working storage areas. Everything in this area is built with bricks, the canal walls, sidewalks, and buildings… If you had a penny for every brick in this area, you would be independently wealthy.

There was much more to see/do but by then we were so incredibly cold, we headed back for the train station and warmth.

While we were looking for something to eat at the train station...On one of the menus we saw:                                                                                         George W. Bush kartoffel mit broccoli und kase.                                                                                                                                                                The George W. Bush baked potato with broccoli and cheese sauce.