Hamburg: Just don't insult the swans!

After another painfully early start (I thought we'd got away from them after finishing work) we had a nail biting journey on the metro out to the edge of Amsterdam to catch our coach to Hamburg. Having made it by what we thought was the skin of our teeth we proceeded to sit idle in the coach for 50 minutes, needless to say we weren't impressed! From the outside it looked promising, it said it was "business class" and also provided free water, free wifi, toilet facilities, free newspaper and a plug socket. Actually it had none of these and the hapless drivers, of which there were 3 for a 7 hour journey seemed absolutely clueless about what they were doing.

Anyway, we eventually arrived and fortunately our hostel was just a stones throw from the coach station. We ran the gauntlet of homeless people and made it safe and sound. We headed out into the dull and dismal Briish-style weather to find some food and where to better to go in Germany than to the bakers! We plumped for the local treat, Franzbrötchen, which is only really found in Hamburg and is sort of like a cinnamon bun but nicer. We then headed up to the 2 man made lakes, the Alster and the außenalster, dodging more homeless people along the way. Our tummies were rumbling again  so we tore ourselves away from the peace of the lakes to hunt down a reasonably priced dinner. When staying in a hostel without a kitchen, this can be quite a hard task! What better to have in Hamburg though than Hamburgers!! As ever with these early starts, it meant an early night.

We awoke to yet more dampness and drizzle so decided it was a perfect morning to catch up on some laundry as we were down to our final t-shirt each. With the German tumble drier deciphered but not really drying our clothes we headed down to join the walking tour, which we'd actually missed by half an hour. Instead we decided to make our own way through the city, along the banks of the Elbe and up to the area of St.Pauli and Hamburg's infamous red light district, situated along the wonderfully named Reeperbahn. This area seemed a lot seedier than what we had seen in Amsterdam so with a quick walk up and down and a brief visit to a Lidl plonked right in the middle of it to pick what we thought was still water (it wasn't it was sparkling) we headed of in search for sights. After another stop at a bakery for yet more Franzbröchten, we headed to the Außenalster, which is a huge man made lake right in the centre of the city. This place was a joggers paradise and when we weren't admiring the views of the city across the lake or the wildlife that it was teeming with, we took great pleasure in spotting which runners had made it all the way round the lake, which were doing laps up and down and discussing everyone's running styles. The walk was about 7km, which took us about an hour and a half (including a diversion for a quick go on a swing!) and was probably one of the best things we've done so far. We skipped the stress of deciding where to eat and went for the same place as the night before, you just can't go wrong with a burger!

The next morning we actually made it in time for the free walking tour. It was fortunate we'd missed the previous day's one as it was a beautiful warm and sunny day. The first fact of the day was about the swans, it is said that as long as there are swans on the river Alster, then Hamburg will be a free and prosperous city and that it is actually illegal to eat, hurt or even insult the swans (damn those swans!!) First stop was St. Peter's church, which has the oldest known artifact in the city of Hamburg, which is a tiny little bronze door handle. It was used when 2 people wanted to agree a contract, they would hold on to the door handle, if they agreed, the would both let go and shake hands but if they disagreed one would hold on to the handle until an agreement was reached. Next up was the building that was used to manufacture gas for the gas chambers of the concentration camps, a pretty morbid stop but quite interesting. The people who made the gas were taken to the UK and tried for their crimes but they denied them, claiming that they sold it to the nazis without knowing what they were using it for, but they were caught out when it emerged that they hadn't been adding a smell to the gas which was normally used as a pesticide and thus had an odour added to it. Who'd have thought this blog would be so educational? The church of St. Nicholas followed which was almost completely destroyed during World War 1 and the Bridge of Solace, which is where prisoners were given their final blessing before being marched to the docks naked and hung. From here we got our favourite fact, that there is more bridges in Hamburg than in Venice, Amsterdam and London combined, which having been to all 3 is quite hard to believe! Finally we went to the warehouse district and the brand spanking new HafenCity which is still being built. The warehouse district are huge red brick buildings that were used to house the massive amounts of cargo that flowed through the busy Port of Hamburg but are now home to tourist attractions like the Hamburg Dungeons and Miniatur Wunderland. Finally we went to HafenCity which the biggest new housing project in Europe and home to the detested Hamburg Opera House, originally planned to cost 75 Million Euros but has already cost the city 1 Billion Euros and it's not even finished yet!

We moved on to the Miniatur Wunderland which is essentially the biggest model railway in the world and features replicas of the City of Hamburg, an international airport, Austria and the USA all in model form with moving parts, it  was certainly more interesting than I've described and for young and old alike.

That pretty much wrapped up Hamburg and though it wasn't the most picturesque city in the world it still had plenty to offer and has a great history.

Picturesque will be handled on our next stop, wonderful Copenhagen.

James and Charlotte