Hamburg

26th - 29th December 2009

We arrived into Hamburg around 4, and quickly found the s-bahn, which took us out to our hostel. I was a bit concerned with our accommodation, as it was quite difficult to find somewhere affordable in the city. As we left the s-bahn station my fears were quickly realised, when we found ourselves surrounded by heaps of homeless bums and drunks. We were smack bang in the middle of Europe's biggest Red Light District. (Apparently it's much bigger than Amsterdam's but also much sleazier). We checked into the hostel, which was more like a prison. There were no windows, long corridors, lino floors, and nobody in sight. It wouldn't have killed them to put up a few pictures on the walls. We dumped our bags off in our cell and decided to go for a wander around the area.

We explored the Reeperbahn district, which was home to the Beatles while they were still 'discovering themselves' (And Ringo). Just up from the hostel was Beatlesplatz where they had a lovely sculpture of the famous 4, with the sad 5th member standing a few meters away with his head hung. We strolled up the little alleyways, looking at run down clubs and topless bars. Apparently due to the large port in Hamburg, it was also necessary to give the sailors somewhere to 'blow off steam' when docked, and that's how the Reeperbahn came into being. We spent a few hours walking up the street looking at all the sex clubs, even though it had just gotten dark people were starting to come out of the woodwork. There were clubs were women weren't even allowed into. But our favourite was the one with the massive front, with large images filling from inside the club posted on the storefront. It was clear that they hadn't updated these shots from the early 80s as all the women were in leotards with massive teased up permed hair. I think one was even wearing some leg warmers. We tried to find a 'condomerie', which was talked about in our Lonely Planet, but we failed to find it. Apparently they have a giant condom in their window and if anyone can successfully fill it, then they receive a 50-euro voucher for the store. Reputably only two men have been able to do so. We had our second blasting of John Farnham whilst walking the Reeperbahn; one of the shops was playing 'Pressure Down', which we had a little smile about.

When we were nearing the end of the sex shops and clubs, I noticed a large shop sign from a distance than I thought was peculiar. It was advertising "Fashion and Tools". I thought it was an odd combination unless you needed a new hammer to go with a new pair of jeans. It was only when we got to the store that I remembered where we were, and I spotted the mannequin in a latex nurses outfit holding various 'tools'!!

It was now quite late, so we decided to get dinner. The options were fairly limited in the area, unless we wanted a Big Mac or a Tower Burger. We eventually found a Steak and Fish and Schnitzel House. I didn't need to look at the menu long, and settled on a Jager Schnitzel and hoped that it would be as nice as the first one I'd had in Bremen. Dan Just had a plain Weiner Schnitzel. It was absolutely amazing. I wanted to ask the queer little waiter how they made the mushroom sauce, but it was so good. I wanted it to last forever! After dinner we strolled back through St Pauli and the Reeperbahn to our hostel. We enjoyed the rest of the evening watching MTV's (The only channel in English). Rock of Love: Charm School. Absolutely hilarious reality show in which the failed contestants on Bret Michaels Rock of Love are trained to become better rock girlfriends by Sharon Osbourne.

The next morning, Sunday, we made our way into the centre of town (After picking up some hotdogs in croissants for breakfast), with the intention of going on another free walking tour, as the one in Berlin was so excellent. We got into the city about an hour before it was due to start and it was like walking into a ghost town. We walked around for about 20 minutes before we actually saw another person. Everything was closed, and obviously the residents were all still enjoying a Sunday sleep in. There were a few men beginning to dismantle a Christmas market in the square out the front of the Town Hall. We did a slow amble around some of the shops, then made our way back to the Starbucks and picked up a coffee while we waited for the tour to begin.

There were about 15 others on the tour, and the tour guide was an American girl who'd been in Hamburg for a few years. The tour made its way through the centre of town, stopping at a few churches and important historical buildings. It then moved to have a look at some Kontor Haus (Offices of shipping companies). The most impressive being the ChileHaus, as it was built to look like a massive ship, and named because that particular company did most of its trade with Chile. We also saw where the great fire of Hamburg in 1884 started, and then spread to destroy a quarter of the buildings in the city. Surprisingly there was a lot of the city that was left untouched by the war. We stopped at a church that was one of the unlucky ones, all that was left was the massive spire (Biggest of its time in Europe) and a couple of external walls.We stopped for half an hour at another Starbucks for a break, Dan and I refused to shell out for the ridiculously overpriced coffee and instead just made use of their toilets and waited for the rest of the group to be finished. The last part of the tour took us to the new waterfront development called Hafen City. It's has been under construction for the last 15 or so years, and they predict that it will be another 15 until it's all done. It's basically just brand new housing and office development, with some very bizarre style buildings, all developed around the canals. They're also part way through building a new opera house which is apparently going to blow Sydney's out of the water when it's eventually finished; It's a strange triangle shaped, glass building. Most of the canals were frozen too which made it interesting. The tour ended with a nice little pirate story on the edge of the canal. We paid the girl a small tip, she wasn't that good, but we felt sorry for her because there was hardly any people left by the end of the tour. It was late afternoon by the time the tour was over, so we strolled back into the city in search of some lunch. We ended up covering most of the city centre in the hopes of finding something that we wanted, and still we couldn't decide what we wanted.

It was almost dark by the time we stumbled into a Christmas market, and opted to just have a lunch/dinner. We before making it home and got off a stop early. I wanted to have a look along the docks, so we ended up taking a very chilly walk along the waters edge, and looking in all the souvenir shops and at the menu's of all the closed restaurants. About halfway down the boardwalk I remembered that I was busting to go to the toilet, so we quickened up the pace, and ended walking all the way back to the hostel - it was only about 35 minutes.

We didn't bother going out again that night, as we were both still full from our very late lunch, so we just spent the evening reading and watching TV.

We woke up the next morning and didn't really know how we were going to spend the day, as there really wasn't that much else to do in Hamburg, so we decided that we'd just go and have a look at all the shops in town. We picked up some more Hot Dog Croissants and jumped on the s-bahn into town. We really didn't achieve that much, but doing lots of window-shopping. We did manage to find a bookshop that sold some English books, so we picked up a new novel each as we'd both just about finished the library ones we brought with us.We also took the time to go back to the destroyed church that we visited on the walking tour the day before and took a lift up to the very top of the spire. It was pretty high, and kinda scary because sometimes there'd be walls next to the lift, then there would be big bomb holes. The view from the top was really lovely. We got some nice photos looking over all the canals and lakes, but I didn't handle the height to well, so we didn't stay long up there. The rest of the afternoon was spent just doing some more shopping. It surprised us how easily we managed to fill in an entire day.

We ventured back to the hostel just before dinner time, and we'd already decided that we were going to go back to the Steak, Seafood and Schnitzel house that we visited 2 nights before. I had another Jager Schnitzel (Why try something else when I know I already loved that??) and Dan tried a Schnitzel with peppery, capsicum, spicy sauce. Again, it was delicious. After dinner it was a brisk walk back down the Reeperbahn to pack our bags up and go to sleep.

The next morning we said goodbye to the prison, I mean hostel, grabbed some Hot Dog croissants and headed for the Hauptbahnhoff (Central Station).