Hamburg, meine Perle

14

As a 20 year old student equipped only with an AS level in German I landed in Hamburg for a semester abroad. Pre-smart phones, pre-Google Translate and even Google maps in its infancy, I have absolutely no idea why I wasn’t more freaked out about the prospect of living abroad. But, equipped with a paper fold-out map that accompanied me everywhere, my basic German and youthful naïveté, I had the absolute best few months.

When I left I consoled myself with the prospect that I could return every year. I’ve been back twice since… and the last time was 2013!

It has been far too long. But, it turns out that returning is like riding a bike. We only had a short time in Hamburg (which included a day trip to Bremen), but it was enough to dip my toe back in and make me vow not to leave it too long before returning.

Because I have lived in Hamburg before my main objective for this trip was to do and see a few things that were new since I left and revisit a few familiar places.

We started our day in the Speicherstadt, Hamburg’s old warehouse district.

Our first stop of the day was Miniatur Wunderland, somewhere I had been before, but my mum hadn’t. TOP TIP: Book well in advance and if you can’t get tickets for your chosen timeslot, there are tickets available which for just a little bit more include a VR experience that get you entry into Miniatur Wunderland without the need to stick to a specific timeslot.

Miniatur Wunderland is the world’s largest model railway exhibition and it’s located in one of the old warehouse buildings in the Speicherstadt. It features incredibly detailed miniature landscapes from different regions and countries in the world. It’s full of cityscapes and landscapes complete with trains, cars, ships, and thousands of tiny figures going about their daily lives.

Naturally, there’s a mini-Hamburg along with a number of other major European and more far-flung destinations, including a recent South America expansion.

The models include day-night cycles, so every now and again the place gets dark and all the lights on the models come on and they take on a different vibe.

But this isn’t just a passive attraction. Throughout there are buttons to push that trigger certain things – it might be a tree felling, it might be dolphins jumping, it might be cable cars running etc. It’s so much fun, kids would love it. Although the biggest attraction is quite possibly the airport section where planes land and take-off on schedule.

It’s genuinely impressive how much work has gone into recreating these miniature worlds with such attention to detail. My favourite thing about it all is the humour and fun. There are so many quirky things to spot. We watched the Coca Cola truck roll past us, spotted the ewoks surrounding Han Solo, Luke, Chewie, R2-D2 and C3PO, and so many more things.

We probably spent the best part of the morning there and still didn’t see everything, there’s a point where you get miniatured out. They seriously need to do a sort of ticket that allows you to return on another day so you can see it in smaller chunks.

New since my last visit is the Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg’s Concert Hall. Construction started after I left and the grand opening took place in 2017, so it’s entirely new to me. The surrounding Hafen area has also undergone a huge amount of development since I was last there, but our focus was visiting the Elbphilharmonie.

You can visit the plaza level there for free. Inside is a shop and refreshment options but the main attraction is the outside terrace that encircles the building just below the glass-clad levels and which offers a 360 degree look at the surrounding area from 37 metres above ground level.

Access is free but ticketed. You can either pay online and secure a ticket and timeslot in advance or chance walk-in tickets by turning up to the small booth right in front of the entrance. We were there on a weekday and so decided to just get tickets on the day.

Once through the ticket gates you board a curved escalator that takes you up to a first level which offers a little glimpse at the Elbe river. Another, shorter curvy escalator and you are up to the main plaza level from which you can visit the shop or cafe or just head outside for a look at the surrounding harbour area.

Almost impossible to see in the below photo (I didn’t have a long lens) but circling above us was the Airbus Beluga, a cargo plane shaped at the front a bit like a Beluga whale. According to a local who was also watching near us, it’s not that common to see it. Although if you wait long enough at Miniatur Wunderland’s airport you might catch a mini version landing or taking off from the model airport.

After a good look around and descending the curvy escalators, we headed for lunch at nearby Kartoffelkeller (excellent first sign being people telling us as they were leaving that the food was really good) where we filled up on excellent potato-heavy, warming, good for the soul meals accompanied by Alsterwasser (a Hamburg shandy) and generally enjoyed super cosy vibes. Exactly the sort of place that was needed on an overcast Autumn day.

Our next stop was the St Pauli area. Most famous probably for two things: the St Pauli football team, and the Reeperbahn, Hamburg’s red light district and the area where the Beatles used to play before they became famous. It was also where we used to go for a fun night out of drinking and dancing.

We headed over to the FC St Pauli club shop where we picked up a few bits and pieces. When I lived in Hamburg St Pauli were very much the Hamburg underdog team to Hamburger SV. At the time St Pauli were in the third division, whereas Hamburger SV were in the first division. Now, both teams are in the top division.

St. Pauli has a unique political identity. During the 1980s, left-leaning fans and local residents began actively shaping the club’s culture. The club’s core principles – anti-fascism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, and anti-homophobia – emerged organically from the fan culture before being officially adopted by the club itself. They also have an official ban on right-wing activities and displays in their ground and work with anti-fascist groups to enforce it.

They also have a kick ass symbol – a skull and crossbones – so their merchandise is top tier when it comes to both values and aesthetics (I love their sourcing principles – not perfect, but better).

Now I generally abhor the TikTok influencer style videos of ‘hidden gems’ or ‘must do’ things in a city. Generally I think that people who do those sort of videos should be first up against the wall come the revolutions because they ruin things by concentrating a large number of tourists in places that often can’t sustain people who will turn up in their droves for photos for the ‘gram and then leave. But I must admit that in browsing to see what had changed in the city from when I was last there, I came across a video and was influenced. And I have no regrets. Shoot me now.

Located on Glashüttenstraße in St Pauli is Hamburg Potter, a ceramics shop. But the big TikTok draw is the machine located right outside the front door. You insert 4 euros (coins only – if the shop is open then the owner should have change) and you get to pick a drawer with either a known design or a mystery design. You can also purchase tiles inside. We purchased two designs of our choice inside – one featuring the castle from the Hamburg flag and one featuring Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer. So we went for a mystery tile from the machine (see what we got in this post).

There are a number of machines across the city and nearby areas, the locations of which can be found here.

We caught the art machine bug, so it was helpful that straight across the street was another similar machine outside Raubfisch Art. This had a range of possible options and we chose the option of a small canvas with a rubbing from the local area (the location of the rubbing is stamped on the side of the canvas).

We also did a bit of shopping in the area. See what we bought in this post.

Also new in Hamburg since I left is the redevelopment of the Feldstraße Bunker. The Feldstraße Bunker is a World War II-era flak tower in St. Pauli. It’s a huge concrete structures that the Nazis built for air defence – essentially indestructible.

For most of its postwar existence, the bunker served various purposes. Parts of it were used for storage, some sections housed music studios and rehearsal spaces etc. A recent redevelopment project that finished in 2021 built a hotel on top of the bunker, adding five floors on top of the existing structure.

In addition, the redevelopment added a ‘mountain path’ around the building, essentially a staircase with terraces that wraps around the outside of the bunker, leading up to a public rooftop garden at the top.

It’s free to walk up, and you can enjoy the views as you ascend. There are also information placards that explain the history of the bunker.

From there we headed back into town for a stroll past the Rathaus and along the edge of the Binnenalster.

And we couldn’t visit Hamburg and not pay a visit to my old neighbourhood and home. So we headed for the U-Bahn towards Landungsbruecken. It’s so odd, but the one thing that hit me the most is how the U-bahn stations still smell like they did when I was there. We walked down into the Rathaus station and it felt like stepping back in time. For a moment, I was 20 again and it smelt like law school, H&M, all the wrong boys, freedom and youth.

In my absence my old neighbourhood, the Portuguese quarter, has gentrified somewhat. It still felt like home, but rather than feeling like a very local place, it now feels a bit more like a destination. It now has wine bars, a sushi restaurant, a burrito place, a wall mural. My local Rewe was still there and a restaurant I used to pass each day looked almost entirely unchanged. Very reassuring.

Before we had to leave we took a stroll along the harbour front, which has also had a bit of a glow up since I was there.

So long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, adieu Hamburg. I promise not to leave it so long until I see you next. You will always have a piece of my heart.