The Scattergun Approach: You know what's hard to find in Hamburg?

Hamburgers.

No jokes. We went for nearly two whole days without seeing a single burger. We thought, well, that's a lie... I thought that I'd be really witty and take a photo of me eating a hamburger in Hamburg. I think Alex just agreed to play along with my madness because I had the only key to our hostel room.

So, why Hamburg? Mostly, because we could and we lucked into some unbelievably cheap last-minute train tickets, and after not-much thought and a measly 4.5 hour train trip from Copenhagen, we were in Germany. Incidentally, to get to Germany our train CAUGHT A BOAT. Like, the entire train was put onto a boat. Don't tell me that isn't the coolest thing ever.

This picture was taken on a train. On a boat.
(That's a lie. We had to get off the boat while on the ferry)

Speaking of lies, there was no sun on this deck.

The Hamburg Hauptbahnhof.

We dropped our stuff at our hostel and eagerly set out for some Hamburg by night.

Concerning fact - this is a real clothes shop.
These are not pyjamas.

Also, we found a Scientology centre

We started the next morning with the breakfast of champions.

Whatever this thing is.

No really, what is it? To me, it tasted like barely cooked shortbread dough (which I loved, in accordance with my "baked goods always taste better unbaked" theory) covered with sugary deliciousness.

We then went for a leisurely stroll around the Außenalster, a kind of lake with a seriously case of pond scum. It is also where the rich and fabulous of Hamburg live, so we did a little bit of sugar-daddy window shopping.

On the topic of rich and fabulousness, Hamburg is home to the largest number of millionaires in Europe according to our walking tour guide, a former accountant from 4hrs east of Perth called Peter. This is because of the city is pretty much a front for an eff-off huge industrial harbour.

Hamburg's development has been closely linked to its involvement in the Hanseatic League/Trading fraternity. In 1189, a charter was given to the city by King Barbarossa declaring it an Imperial Free City and giving it tax-free trading rights along the Elbe River. This prompted development of a port and other necessary infrastructure, as Hamburg would now provide a crucial trading link between the mainland of Europe and the Baltic and Scandinavian countries.

The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.
Incidentally, the building is the Hammaburg, which was the first building built on the site of modern Hamburg.
They think.
No one has ever been able to locate any evidence of the palace, but that hasn't stopped it from becoming the city's emblem.

A few years later, another charter was given, and so on and so forth as the port grew larger. One day, some curious town council folks decided that they wanted to have a squiz at the original charters, so they went to the town records and took out the documents at which point they realised that the documents were forged.

Shocked and appalled by this turn of events they...altered the documents to make them EVEN MORE favourable to the city and then put them right back where they found them and didn't tell anyone. Well played, sneaky Hamburg.

The influence of the port is very much evident in the architecture around the city. This is the Chilehaus, probably the most photographed building in the city. It's a boat. It also once held the record for "The pointiest point on any building anywhere", which is an award committee I would, quite frankly, love to be a member of. The Haus was commissioned by Henry B Sloman to be the headquarters of his shopping company, which became fabulously rich importing sodium nitrates from... now don't get too surprised now... Chile.

The city's Kontorhaus District provides some more distinctive architecture. The buildings were used by the shipping companies, employing people in 12 hr shifts to do take care of the extensive inventories associated with the trade. This is Sprinkenhof, which was the first place in Europe to have a (constantly moving) elevator. Back in the day, stopping elevators was a bit too difficult, so you just had to jump in and hope for the best, or, as the name literally means, pray to god. Due to its iconic architecture, the Sprinkenhof is protected by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

This is another counting house. Because everyone likes a good nautical theme, most of the buildings in Hamburg have some kind of cap-tilt to the ocean, and in this buildings case, it is a statue of Poseidon.

See the boats on top of the building?

Annnnd it's a poodle.

And this is another counting house, owned by one of the former rich-and-fabulouses of Hamburg. His roof statute is a poodle, because his nickname for his wife was "poodle". Because she was adorable? Because she was intelligent? Because she was hypoallergenic? Nope, nope, nope. Because she had big, puffy curly hair. He also named his lead ship "Poodle", and gave all the ships in his fleet names starting with "P". Flattering.

And no harbour city is complete without mention of pirates. Despite being significantly inland, Hamburg had a problem with pirates, and none was so difficult as Klaus Störtebeker (fun fact: Störtebeker wasn't his real last name. It means "empties the cup with one gulp" referring to Klaus' alleged talent for drinking 4L of beer in one gulp). Now Klaus hadn't always been a pirate, in fact, it was actually the Hamburg government's fault he got hooked on a life of adventure on the high seas. Queen Margaret of Denmark was on a bit of a rampage and was invading across Scandinavia, and the Swedes sent an SOS to the Germans. The Germans replied with Klaus, and others, who were ordinary sailers who were sent off to provide supplies to Stockholm. Naturally, after liberating Sweden, returning to day-to-day work was just too mundane, so Klaus and his merry crew reverted to piracy - raiding the rich ships of the Hanseatic Alliance and giving to the poorer communities around the place.

Eventually, the powers that be got sick of all this involuntary charity and sent pirate-hunters out to catch Klaus. They did this for a long while without success, so eventually they resorted to treachery. They put a guy out in a leaky boat disguised as a fisherman, and the pirates, being good blokes, let him on board. Then, in the dead of night, the faux-fisherman poured molten lead over the rudder of the pirate ship, pretty much disabling it. Don't ask me how he obtained the molten lead. I don't know whether he melted it on board, or like... smuggled a pot of it onto the boat somehow... But regardless, the pirates were caught and sentenced to death. Klaus wanted to save his men, but the city folk were fairly unimpressed by the whole situation and wouldn't budge from executing the whole bunch. Then Klaus made a final offer - every man he walked past after he was beheaded would be spared, and the city folk accepted (seriously guys, why do you make these loopholes for yourselves?). Execution day came, and Klaus stepped up to the plate. He was beheaded.

He got up.

And walked past one, two, three, four.... eleven men.

At which point the executioner tripped the headless body. And then executed the eleven men anyway.

Klaus is something of a hero in Germany.

The old harbour.

The old warehouses.

Some newer warehouses

The warehouse district of Hamburg is one of the city's greatest tourist attractions. The warehouses were initially built when Hamburg finally joined the German customs zone, thus had to have somewhere to store and sort all products that came into the harbour, however when the shipping industry became too big for the River Elbe to handle, the main port and customs centres were moved to the other, much wider, side of the river, allowing the old warehouses to be turned into a bunch of tourist attractions - there is a miniatures museum, haunted house, theatre and a coffee-roasting place (since Hamburg imports the most chocolate and coffee of anywhere in Europe).

Behind the warehouses is a new area of Hamburg - the HafenCity. The city council sneakily bought all of the land on this island behind the old warehouses with the view of making a new urban centre. It's scheduled to be completed between 2020-2030, and apparently has some of the "most daring architecture in Europe".

"Brick Expressionism" is a big thing in Hamburg.

The centrepiece of the HafenCity is this - their opera house.

Jealous of Sydney and Oslo's kickin' opera houses, Hamburg decided they wanted a piece of the action, and commissioned the Swedish firm of architects who designed the Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing. They told them that they had a budget of €77 million.

A few months later the firm came back with the plans. And the bill for the plans.

Totalling €77million.

It's just not even that pretty.
Especially not €77million in plans alone, pretty.

Since that initial stumbling block where the budget for the entire project was spent in one shot, the project has spiralled out of control and no one is really sure when it will be finished and how much it will cost. But as an extra kick in the balls, the building is going to continue to absorb money for pretty much forever, since all of those pretty curved faces of glass can only be cleaned by hand.

Aside from the ports, Hamburg's history is pretty much defined by the Great Fire of 1842. The fire destroyed at least 25% of the city, left 20,000 homeless and killed 51 people.

Also, the starting point for the fire is now a restaurant.
Called something like "Start the Fire" or "The First Fire"
Stay classy.

It started in this building, in a previous incarnation as a tobacco factory. As a point of interest, yes, this is the original building. Despite decimating every other building in the city, ground zero remains unscathed. The fire burned for nearly 4 days, and took firefighters from Hamburg and several surrounding cities to put out. To be honest, I'm not surprised they needed to get reinforcements to get the fire under control because it sounds like the Hamburg firefighters didn't quite realise what their job was.

As the fire, burning out of control and leaving a trail of destruction in its wake, turned its ugly face towards the Town Hall, some bright spark in the fire department has what can be fairly described as simultaneously the best and worst idea ever. The best idea... "hmmmm, town hall has a lot of important documents. Lets get them all out before the fire hits", and the worst "now we've got all this spare space in the town hall, let's pack it full of dynamite."

I'm going to let that marinade for a moment.

They were afraid that the building was going to burn down. So they filled it with explosives.

What was WRONG with that man?!? And what the HELL is wrong with the rest of the fire brigade who were like "Oh Hans, das idea ist super", as they crammed explosives into every square metre of the town hall.

I can't even imagine what it must have been like to be one of the other fire fighters who showed up on day 4 - "Ok ok guys... I think I see where you're going wrong. STOP BLOWING SHIT UP AND PUT SOME WATER ON THE GODDAMN FIRE". There? Fire out? That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Although props to the god-fearing population of Hamburg, 4pm mass at St Nikolas was scheduled to go ahead despite the raging flames, and probably would have happened, had the fire not beaten the congregation inside.

The site of St Nikolas is now a memorial site, although I suspect it has something to do with the fact that there are only so many times you can rebuild the former tallest building in the world. During the second world war, the Brits pretty much annihilated the church several times over because when you're the (former) tallest building in the world (from 1874-1876), you're a bit difficult to miss. The bell tower has been rebuilt, but the rest of the church has been left as ruins as a memorial to the victims of the war.

There are a lot of little markers of Hamburg's WW2 history scattered around the city. These are "stumbling stones" which have been laid outside of the workplaces of people who, due to nazi policies on race etc, we're dragged from the buildings and usually sent to concentration camps. This one honours Henrich Mayer, who worked at the Patriot's Society - a group which promoted German culture and philanthropy.

A stumbling stone.

This is a memorial outside the new town centre, the carving is of a grieving mother, but during the war the Nazis deemed this too depressing or something, and so replaced it with an eagle. Following the war, the grieving mother was returned.

Hamburg holds the dubious honour of playing home to Zyklon B, the gas used in the Nazi gas chambers. This is the plaque outside the main offices of the company who manufactured, and suggested their gas be used in the camps. Apparently there was a bit of a battle between the council and the new lessees of the premises about whether the plaque should be erected, with concerns that employees could become depressed if they had to walk past it everyday on their way into work.

Hamburg is incredibly flat, with the highest point being marked by St Petris church, and keeping with my "climb something tall in as many locations as possible" approach to travel, climbing the 126m bell tower was practically compulsory. A lovely German woman at the bottom told us to write our names on a list, which I assumed was some kind of visitors book. Nope. You write your name, and then have to tick it when you get safely back down. We should have been prepared for what ensued at that point.

When St Nikolai burnt down in the Great Fire, these door knobs were the only part of the original building that can be salvaged.

There are over 500 steps to the top of the tower. There are also no open windows in the entire spire. So as you walk around in circles higher and higher, getting hotter and hotter you can fully appreciated what it feels like to be microwaved. We were hot, sweaty and otherwise dying, but consoling ourselves that it would all be worth it as (a) the stairs were burning off the curry wurst and chips with mayonnaise we'd had for lunch and (b) it would be be a wonderful view and breeze at the top.

Wrong.

There was no viewing platform. What there was was a enclosed 2m2 platform, inside the spire that you huddled onto while you tried to take photos out of the greasy circular windows that had been grudgingly cut into the roof of the church to allow them to scam people out of hard earned calories. We only managed to stay up there for about 10mins before the oppressive heat sent us scurrying down the tower seeking lower temperatures.

The staircase in the spire.

Looking straight down.

And speaking of churches, another church in Hamburg is pretty famous - St Jacobi. Officially, it's famous for having the oldest pipe organ in the world (built in 1693), but unofficially, it's famous for almost employing J.S Bach. I say almost, because after advertising the organist's position as vacant, Bach auditioned and was offered the job. The catch - he had to pay the church for the privilege. So Bach, who was already kind of a big deal at this time, politely said screw you and then someone else who no one knows played the organ instead.

St Jacobi

Hamburg is also known, according to Hamburgers, as the birthplace of the Beatles because they played a lot (169) of gigs here before they became really big. Despite my well-publicised intolerance of The Beatles, it would have been pretty dud of me not to go, and who doesn't love a good old fashioned red-light district?

So off to the Reeperbahn. More like Raper-...ugh. I know, too easy. So, as far as red light districts go, smeh. Seedy strip clubs, seedier men shuffling around looking ashamed as they slink into neon dungeons peddling "sexy sexy girls". But the Beatles monument was pretty great.

Now, I know what you're all thinking. "Lucy, that is a golden photo opportunity, you could be one of the Beatles, or you could at least punch them in the face for writing Yellow Submarine, why isn't there a photo of you doing that?".

"Homeless people," is what I would think in reply, if you know.... I had like ESP and could hear you thought-ask me questions, "homeless people everywhere. Legit, this was the only photo I could get without including a homeless person in it."

Feeling seedy by association, we trekked back to the city centre and found out that Germany, like Denmark, really rates free outdoor cinema, so we watched the original King Kong movie (in English, thankfully) while eating crepes. Incidentally, some of the dialogue in that movie is just too good to leave out here.

Nutella and Kinder Chocolate Crepes.
Om.
Nom.
Nom.

My favourites:

1. "Well Ann, I think I love you"

"But you hate women!"

"Well yes, I do.. But you ain't women"

2. "Now I'm going to find a girl, even if I have to marry one"

We then zombie-walked back to our hostel, and I, for one, was asleep before my head even hit the pillow.

To kick off our last day in Hamburg, we decided to stock up on baked goods and chill, local-style by the lakes and feed the abundance of bird-life which choke the waterways.

Feeding the swans

Hamburg has an almost creepy relationship with the swans. There are laws protecting the swans. This means that you can't

1. Hit the swans,

2. Throw things at the swans, or

3. OFFEND the swans.

Sneaky swan

We then realised we'd been too busy not offending swans and had missed the tour of the Rathaus we'd planned on going on, but we made the best of the situation by drowning our sorrows in more German deliciousness, in what can be best described as the greatest spur of the moment decision Alex has ever made (in the month that I have known her), because and it not been for Alex, we would not have ventured down to the waters edge to find that the white tents which had been so lifeless and abandoned for the previous two nights had exploded into a hive of activity and, more importantly, delicious food.

A street food stall that wood smokes salmon.

Curry wurst. Delicious.

Seriously, we lived on this stuff.

After debating whether a giant gingerbread heart, iced with "I <3 Hamburg" would survive being posted back to Australia (probably not), we strolled up to the Planten und Blomen and chilled in the 2nd-last day of summer sunshine.

We managed to drag ourselves out of the nirvana-like state that only pastry and sunshine can induce to get to the town hall for a guided tour.

The current town hall (Hamburg's 6th so far) has almost as many rooms as Buckingham Palace, and the total number is still unknown, as people keep on discovering hidden doors when they drop documents behind filing cabinets. Due to the Nazis using the building as their HQ during the war, the building exists in its original state (it was completed in 1897), with a budget of €18million.

This means there are a few interesting touches, including buffalo leather wallpaper, and timber panelling lovingly carved by orphans who were paid a meagre wage.

Hamburg had some pretty talented orphans back in the day.

It also pays tribute to Hamburg's history as a shipping centre and it's various trading partners, including...

Australia! The kangaroo looks a little bedraggled, and the koala is a bit scraggly, but undeniably Australian.

Mostly the building is just super pretty but I can't say I am vitally interested in the local government of Hamburg (who call this place home), so maybe if I was really invested the tours would have been a bit more valuable, but there are still a couple of interesting anecdotes I've gleaned from the building.

For example this balcony is only used on very special occasions. Like, seriously special occasions. Like, the Queen (of England) visiting special occasions. Oh, and when the Hamburg handball team wins championships special occasions. Personally, I think the Queen should feel honoured they think she's worthy enough to stand on the same tiles as the handball guys.

The Disaster Room

Also, the building did not emerge completely unscathed from the war - this chandelier caught a bullet at some stage. Because of this, the room is now called the Disaster Room, and when it's not used for government purposes, it's a popular venue for weddings.

Finally, this is the Grand Ballroom. Looks beautiful, yes? In fact, the first thing I thought when I walked in was, "wow, this place is so beautiful, I can just imagine beautiful people in beautiful dresses doing beautiful dances and generally being beautiful when they did it". No joke, no sooner had this thought gone through my head when our tour guide said "and this is the Grand Room. You can't dance here."

The problem with being a port city is that there tends to be lots of water about the place which isn't the best for structural integrity. To combat this, the town hall sits on a concrete platform, supported by a couple hundred tree trunks, but apparently they're still afraid that dancing could destroy the entire structure. They also only allow violins to play in the hall, because the vibrations from any other instrument could irreparably damage the building. But letting thousands of tourists traipse through the building daily? No worries, storing tonnes of paperwork? Not a problem.

Flutes are the real danger.