Last May I stayed in Hamburg for 24 hours, my train arrived at 3 pm and I left the following day at about the same time. Can one get a more than superficial impression of such a big city, the second largest German city (~ 1,8 million inhabitants) after Berlin, in such a short time? I think ... Read review
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Advantages: Water and ships everywhere! Disadvantages: The weather is not always nice.
Last May I stayed in Hamburg for 24 hours, my train arrived at 3 pm and I left the following day at about the same time. Can one get a more than superficial impression of such a big city, the second largest German city (~ 1,8 million inhabitants) after Berlin, in such a short time? I think so, after all tourists are only interested in the city centre, who'd want to visit the suburbs, which are more or less the same everywhere in the world anyway? ... ...Information there and buy a Hamburg Card. Last year it cost 8 €, I cherish it not only for the possibility of saving money on tickets when going hither and thither by U-Bahn, S-Bahn (kind of tubes) or bus and on entrance fees but also for the fact that with it I’m not in danger of losing face in front of a ticket automat which invariably wins against me, I only get out a ticket if someone helps me.
Last May I stayed in Hamburg for 24 hours, my train arrived at 3 pm and I left the following day at about the same time. Can one get a more than superficial impression of such a big city, the second largest German city (~ 1,8 million inhabitants) after Berlin, in such a short time? I think so, after all tourists are only interested in the city centre, who'd want to visit the suburbs, which are more or less the same everywhere in the world anyway?
It may help that this was already my third visit and I’ve developed a kind of ritual at least for the beginning of my trip. I leave my luggage in a locker at the train station, go to the Tourist Information there and buy a Hamburg Card. Last year it cost 8 €, I cherish it not only for the possibility of saving money on tickets when going hither and thither by U-Bahn, S-Bahn (kind of tubes) or bus and on entrance fees but also for the fact that with it I’m not in danger of losing face in front of a ticket automat which invariably wins against me, I only get out a ticket if someone helps me.
Then it’s off to the Landungsbrücken (five minutes by tube) and onto a boat for a trip through the harbour. I went to the nearest stall where trips were sold for 10 € (2 € off with the Hamburg card) and found the sign ‘Speicherstadt on request’. ‘Speicherstadt‘, the historic ware-house district with high red-brick buildings decorated in a neo-Gothic style where importers and shipping magnates used to store their goods (some still do) until they were sold. Why on request? It‘s only possible to enter it between high tide and low tide, in the first case the bridges are too narrow, in the second the waterways aren‘t deep enough for the barges. I was lucky, the Speicherstadt could be visited.
I love ships, the bigger, the better, but I was unfortunate, none was coming into or going out of the river Elbe. Our captain told us, though, not to think that there was a crisis, on the contrary, Hamburg harbour is booming and will soon surpass Rotterdam which is still the No 1 harbour in Europe. We saw some enormous container ships and ships in docks which were to be repaired, every time we passed one, the captain gave explanations. When we were in the Speicherstadt, he told us about the goods stored there, mainly coffee, tea, cocoa, spices and Persian carpets, after Tehran, Hamburg has the biggest stock of Persian carpets.
After an hour we were back on land and I took the tube to the city centre (5 min.), peeped into the city hall, a richly decorated Neo-Renaissance building finished in 1896. With its tower of 112 metres it‘s Europe's highest town hall. On its façade it shows the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire since Hamburg was, as a Free Imperial City, only under the sovereignty of the emperor. It houses the city council and also the government of the city-state Hamburg, one of the sixteen Federal States of Germany.
Crossing the square in front of the city hall and a bridge across a canal-like part of the river Alster (Hamburg has over 2,300 bridges, more than Amsterdam (1200) and Venice (400) combined, in fact there are more bridges inside the city limits than in any other city or town on earth) I came to the Alsterakaden, the Alster Arcades, with fashion shops, restaurants and cafés. While I was having my cappuccino and a piece of cake looking at a flock of swans in the water and the city hall in the background, a young violinist was playing classical music two cafés away. A woman at the table next to me said to her friend, “This reminds me of Venice.“ The architect Alexis de Châteauneuf who designed the arcades in 1844 would have been pleased because that had just been his intention.
From the arcades it’s just a stone’s throw to the Hanse-Viertel, a mall with elegant and expensive shops, cafés and restaurants. The pavement inside is covered with clinker-bricks which are so well polished that I was afraid of slithering, I looked at where I was putting my feet as often as at the shop windows. As shopping is not my thing, I just walked through.
My next destination was the Hummel Denkmal, the monument for the man who’s responsible for the typical Hamburg greeting of “Hummel, Hummel” [‘u’ pronounced like ‘oo’ in ‘book‘] to which the correct reply is “Mors, Mors”. The city centre is full of figures of water-carriers, more than 100, about 1,50m high, all identical but painted differently. I wanted to see the original, though, which was erected in 1938. I walked from the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße into Bäckerbreitergang, among some trees I found a fountain as the fundament and a more than life-size statue of a water-carrier with some children clinging to his legs on it. There was a water carrier once, a Herr Bentz (1787 - 1854), a grumbly man, children used to shout ‘Hummel, Hummel’ after him, the surname of the man who had lived in his house before him. His answer ‘Mors, Mors’ is short for ‘Klei mi an mors!’ which is Low German for “Lick my back bottom!” Now that you know it, don’t use it and address Hamburgers with “Hummel, Hummel”, only non-Hamburgers do it, the slogan is used mainly for musical or sportive events nowadays to cheer the local bands or teams on .
I went back to the Jungfernstieg, the street where the Alster Arcades start, running along the Binnenalster (inner Alster) which has been dammed up and looks like a lake with sailing boats and barges for tourist trips. I had a snack in the restaurant Alex from where I could see the rainbow in the fountain in the middle of the lake in front of me and the city-hall when I looked to the right.
As to nightlife attractions: Hamburg has a lot to offer from high to very low. I was thinking of watching a play or a film which hadn‘t come to my small town but as the sun was still shining at 8 pm, I decided to stay outside as long as possible. For ‘low’ it was still too early, you may have heard of the Reeperbahn (‘ee’ pronounced like ‘a’ in ‘rape’), Germany’s most infamous red light district, but what should an elderly lady do there on her own? The “most interesting” (very big quotation marks) part is off limits for women anyway.
The next morning I learned by chance that it was a good idea not to go there, the local newspaper showed a list of the six most dangerous places in Hamburg, the Reeperbahn being No 1 with five times as many crimes as No 2 although it has the highest police density in the whole country and the area is video checked.
I discussed with myself all the time which museums to see this time. The Kunsthalle (museum of modern art) of Hamburg is wonderful and well worth a visit, but I’d been there already and then the art is international, in the end I opted for something typical for Hamburg which can’t be found anywhere else.
The tube took me to Veddel (BallinStadt) (5 min. from the central train station, entrance fee 9, 80 €, with Hamburg card 8 €, daily 10am - 6 pm), where in 1899 Albert Ballin, the general director of the shipping company Hapag had a town built catering for the needs of the people who wanted to emigrate. Ballin was a good man (from the brochure) “Although he never lost sight of the business side of his enterprise, his plans showed a sense of social responsibility, which …also extended to the poorest of the poor.” The BallinStadt used to have thirty buildings, three buildings have been reconstructed showing and explaining with written texts, audio guides and video films the way the more than five million emigrants lived and were prepared for their new lives abroad before departure.
My next destination was the Speicherstadtmuseum, (St. Annenufer 2, 3 E, no concessions because it’s private, Tuesday - Sunday, 10am - 5 pm). It’s located on the third floor (no lift!) of a typical red-brick warehouse that is over one hundred years old in the authentic surroundings of the warehouse district. Typical tools like grippers, bales of rubber, coffee-sacks, sampling instruments and historical photos are exhibited showing how people worked in the import - export business a century ago. There’s also a small café on the premises.
On my way to the other small museum in the Speicherstadt, Spicy’s, the only museum of spices worldwide, Am Sandtorkai 32 (3 €, no concessions, either, it’s also private, Tuesday - Sunday, 10 am - 5 pm, second floor, no lift), also located in an old warehouse and also interactive - from the 700 exhibits 50 are spices in open sacks which the visitors can smell, touch or rub between their fingers - I passed the Kesselhaus, Am Sandtorkei 30 (Tuesday - Sunday, 10 am - 6 pm, free entrance)
This was the great discovery of my visit, I hadn’t heard about it and the information I got there overwhelmed me. The Kesselhaus is the former power plant of the historic Speicherstadt warehouse district, it houses a small café and an 8x4 metre model of and information on the HafenCity, the continent’s largest inner city development project. An area of former ware houses, between the city centre and the harbour, both only a few minutes walk away, is being turned into a new town, 800 people are already living there, in 2025 when it’s finished, there will be 12,000. HafenCity will have living quarters, business premises, schools, a part of the Hamburg university, cultural institutions, the new Philharmonic concert hall !, restaurants, squares and promenades. The London Docklands come to mind, but from what I’ve seen and understood HafenCity will be more ‘liveable’, more like a normal town, not just a business district. They’re building an elementary school at the moment, is there one in the Docklands?
Every year in May, Hamburg celebrates the anniversary of the harbour, this year (2008) it was 819 years old. Had I arrived some days earlier, I could have seen a lot of wonderful old sailing ships parading in front of the Landungsbrücken, but then nearly a million other tourists would have been with me. That’s not my beer - as the Germans say.
Advantages: Somewhere to practice my Deutsch Disadvantages: Attitude; Attractions (or lack thereof)
...to a flying start in Hamburg when less than half an hour after landing and €20 lighter we found ourselves a our hotel. Hamburg has a whole bunch of hotels and guest houses but we only stayed at one, the Radisson, and it was ok. Expedia and Opodo have good choices if you're choosing to book online (which, when you think about it, really is the only way to do it).
We spent 4 days in the city at the beginning of December, specifically timed to take ... ...Manchester).
We went to Hamburg first and foremost to go Christmas market shopping, but having a new city at our feet for a long weekend meant we also had to explore. I wanted to go 'regular' shopping (books, clothes, chocolate etc) so one morning we headed over to the Main station which is at one end of the two principal shopping streets. Here we found everything from H&M to Douglas, C&A (still going strong on the continent), Karstadt, Thalia, ...
zoe_page 01.01.2005 (08.04.2006)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Hamburg (Germany)
Advantages: Attractive city, great shopping, good restaurants Disadvantages: Weather?
Hamburg is an attractive city in North Germany. With a population of 1.8 million, it is second only to Berlin in size. It is also the biggest industrial city, with an area of 755 square kilometres. However, whilst the docks thrive with its busy trade the town has not been robbed of its natural beauty. I have been to many cities in Germany and whilst the majority are pleasant, I do find that some are quite similar. They have the same shops, basic ... ...Barbarossa distributed letters to all Hamburg citizens, which granted them freedom from taxes and duties down to the lower Elbe. This document remained in legal force until Hamburg became part of the German Empire in 1888. Cargo trade has always dominated its history, earning it the name "The Gateway to the World". Its importance in Germany's commerce leading to the founding of the first German stock exchange in 1558. You are never far from water ...
Si-Tunes 18.03.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Hamburg (Germany)
Advantages: Great lively city; great sights!! Disadvantages: None really!
Hamburg
Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany and has a rich and varied history and in the modern age is still world famous for it's port, tourist attractions and the Beatles in the 1960s as well as one of the recent James Bond films having been set here in the 1990s! I first visited Hamburg when I was six or seven and had family living over there and I am really pleased that I did as otherwise it is certainly one of those cities that you ... ...Hamburg is a great cosmopolitan city that will appeal to old and young alike. Perfect for couples who enjoy fine dining and shopping as well as perfect for families at the fairs and attractions.
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Getting there:
Flights to Hamburg are relatively frequent. If you live in the North of England like me then direct flights are available from Manchester to Hamburg with Lufthansa and British Midland at a cost of approx £150. Flights are ...
nickjj78 12.09.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Hamburg (Germany)
Advantages: many Sights, much fun -> Nightlife Disadvantages: many crime
...that I am german and Hamburg is my hometown so I will write something about it. I love my hometown more than any other city in the world although is never almost so good as for example London. But I think so and many people call Hamburg as the most beautiful city in Germany and not Berlin. Berlin is besides the shopping a really dirty city.
Hamburg has many sights to see. I will give you some examples:
->the Reeperbahn: The big amusement mile in ... ...the harbour: The port of Hamburg is the third biggest free port worldwide lying next to the Elbe. You can visit there amount of ships, museums, the "Speicherstadt" (Entrepôt city) and you can do many different conducted boat tours of the harbour. -> the city: You can go shopping in the "Mönckebergstrasse" and the "Spitalerstrasse" and at the "Gänsemarkt". There you will find the best and most stores in Hamburg. If you like Second Hand clothes you ...
re-skintbody 02.05.2001 (03.05.2001)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Hamburg (Germany)
Advantages: Buzzing, interesting, friendly and vibrant city. Disadvantages: Some areas deprived and dirty with quite a few beggars.
Arrived central Hamburg tourist information looking for a hotel for two nights (it was 3pm and the city was in the middle of a huge Disco/music fest attracting 350,000 people). Staff at info centre were wonderful, despite being incredibly busy. We were booked into the Crowne Plaza at an amazing rate of 400DM for two people b+b in a double room (last minute rate)for the two nights.
HOTEL- Great reception, very clean and immaculate decor. Room very ... ...Very reliable and reasonably priced.
HAMBURG - Stayed in hotel for evening meal - totally beautiful eating experience. Early start and taxi to FISH MARKET (down at the port 5am - 10am). I could not belive it was so early on a Sunday morning. The atmosphere was electric..bands playing, bars open, thousands of stalls selling everything from crafts to fish.REEPERBAHN - could definatly give Amsterdam a run for it,s money on the red light front!
LOBSTER ...
michelle 26.08.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Hamburg (Germany)
Value for Money
Sightseeing
Shopping
Nightlife
Ease of getting around
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Advantages: Tons to do and see! Disadvantages: None really!
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Gdansk airport
Advantages: The best steaks in Germany! Disadvantages: When will they come to the UK??
~~BLOCK HOUSE~~~
Blockhouse is a chain of German steak houses with over 30 restaurants throughout Germany. Founded in Hamburg in the 1970s there are 12 restaurants in the city with the main city centre locations being close to the Hauptabanhof and the Gansemarktpassage.
The restaurants offer great value for money on great, home cooked food that is always exceptionally fresh, hot and well served. The turn over is very fast with friendly and efficient staff and it is a great place to eat relatively healthy good value food throughout Germany (it does help if you like steak though!). The restaurant is open from 11am until 12 midnight, serving the same menu throughout. But with appropriate items for the time of the day such as lunchtime specials including sandwiches etc.
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