Hamburg Old Town St. Petri
For once, I arrived at the ZOB, our meeting point, two minutes late on Wednesday morning. I had already prepared myself for a thunderstorm, because we tour guides in Hamburg were supposed to be at the meeting point before our guests. But Marcel, the bus driver, just said: “It’s only a minute, that’s no problem!” – Then I knew, oh yes, I’m traveling with Swiss people, not Germans. So the city tour of Hamburg could begin. After driving around the Outer Alster through one of Hamburg’s posh districts and getting to know street names such as “Bellevue” and “Schöne Aussicht”, we were able to admire the Islamic Center in Hamburg and the Outer Alster in bright sunshine. As a qualified tour guide, I always order sunshine for my city tours in Hamburg :-). After a look at the Hotel Atlantic, the permanent home of Udo Lindenberg, we were able to marvel at the Michel (official name: St. Michaelis) from the inside. Directly from this sacred site, we then drove over the “Sinful Mile”, the Reeperbahn, the former no-man’s land between Hamburg and Altona, which is now called the “Kiez” by the people of Hamburg. Unfortunately, we were unable to drive through Große Freiheit as trucks were delivering their goods there. Nevertheless, we were able to catch a glimpse of the evening. Down to the harbor, past the fish market, we passed Blohm + Voss, Hamburg’s largest employer in the port, the second largest port in Europe.
The fact that this port has to contend with a tidal range of around 3.60 m can also be seen at the Landungsbrücken, which we saw shortly afterwards on the right-hand side behind the Old Elbe Tunnel. On the left is Hamburg’s oldest subway railroad (also known as the elevated railroad due to its above-ground route), on the right the museum ships Rickmer Rickmers and Cap San Diego. – This Hamburg tour includes all of Hamburg’s highlights – We crossed the Kornhausbrücke bridge and entered the Speicherstadt warehouse district. Here at the western end, you don’t yet recognize so much of the freshly baked UNESCO World Heritage Site, only when we drove east between the “old” Speicherstadt and the “hypermodern” HafenCity did the old warehouses of the former free port area from the end of the 19th century appear. But HafenCity with its various buildings is also an eye-catcher. Elphi (official name: Elbphilharmonie), Cruise Terminal, Marco Polo Tower; the new district will be extended eastwards to the Elbe bridges by 2025. Passing the Deichtorhallen, we then came to the Mö (official name: Mönckebergstraße), Hamburg’s busiest shopping street, and the nucleus of Hamburg. Where the town’s first chapel stood in the 9th century, St. Peter’s Church now stands, steadfastly enduring the hustle and bustle around it. We parked in front of the town hall, which was completed at the end of the 19th century after around 50 years of construction, after the old one was blown up in the Great Fire of 1842. With its market and arcades, the town center was intended to bring some Italian flair to northern Germany. Our morning tour ended here and everyone went their own way… until…
Boxing cellar in the RITZE
… we met again at the Landungsbrücken in the evening to take a closer look at the Reeperbahn. After we had climbed Hamburg’s highest “inner city mountain”, we rested a little in front of the Bernhardt Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, the world-famous tropical institute. Here my guests heard the first information about the Reeperbahn, prostitution and the contrast between Hamburg and Altona. Through Davidstraße, we also passed Herbertstraße, which is “forbidden” for women, and then arrived at Davidwache, the main guardhouse of the Reeperbahn. From there, we took a short detour into one of the side streets, which are now frequently used by Hamburgers to avoid the approx. 200,000 visitors at the weekend. On the “back” of Grosse Freiheit, we stopped briefly at the former Israelite Hospital and then entered Grosse Freiheit from the north. We took another look at the St. Josef Catholic Church and the former Star Club before deciding to walk past the Olivia Jones Bar and have a drink in a traditional pub – the Ritze. It had to be a Hamburg original: Helbings Kümmel. We also took the opportunity to visit the famous boxing cellar, which is otherwise closed. And then the lovely excursion was already over… I said goodbye while my guests were still exploring the Kiez and hope that they will come back – to the most beautiful city in the world!
