Right on time at 10:30 on Sunday morning, almost all of my guests were standing with me under the more than hundred-year-old viaduct of the elevated railroad at Baumwall. The individually planned Hamburg tour was supposed to take two hours through the Speicherstadt, HafenCity and then finally to the Michel. The fact that it turned out to be three hours can be attributed to my participants’ comfort and thirst for knowledge. But then we were able to eat together outside in the beautiful sunshine at Paulaner. We were first able to get an idea of the old inland port and the pre-development of the Speicherstadt. The new buildings on the west side are mainly office buildings, but a highlight in HafenCity – opposite the old warehouses – is of course the Elbphilharmonie concert hall. With a little help, my guests were also able to recognize the stylized coffee sacks in the window panes. We walked along the old rails of Sandtorkai to the HafenCity Info Center to get a nice overview of the entire complex of the Speicherstadt under construction. As a certified tour guide, I am always allowed to use the fantastic wooden model of HafenCity as “illustrative material” free of charge. Many thanks for that!
On our tour of the city, we delved further into the “real” HafenCity and marveled at the elementary school, the Elbphilharmonie Pavilion, the Marco Polo Tower, the cruise terminal, Überseeboulevard, Claas Störtebeker and the International Maritime Museum as well as the Fleetschlösschen, which already has a busy history behind it. To head back towards the Michel, we walked across St. Annenplatz through Speicherblock H, where I briefly explained the function of the Westphalian towers on the historic warehouses. Through Deichstraße with its old warehouses, where time seems to have stood still in places, we made our way to the last highlight of our city tour: St. Michael’s Church. St. Michael’s Church – official… After a brief introduction to the history of burning down and rebuilding, of superlatives and tower clocks, we also visited the interior of this beautiful church. We visited the individual corners and to round off our exploration of Hamburg, we stopped off at Paulaner’s on Großneumarkt, where we were able to enjoy our meal outside thanks to the spring weather.
Many thanks to my dear guests! I hope we haven’t seen each other for the last time! Hamburg has so much to offer. – And then Schleswig-Holstein!
