Sunny day wanderings in a lovely seaside German city.

Hamburg Day, 21st of June

Today we decided we weren't interested in any of Hamburg's 'attractions', and merely wanted to have a look around the place. Turns out Hamburg was quite nice for the just looking around.

We headed out, and it was nice to be in a town that wasn't all about the tourists – there were actually normal, reasonably priced shops to go into at times, and my first purchase of the day was a new SD card for my camera. How exciting!

Then we went here for a wee look - the Hamburg Rathaus, or town hall. Couldn't do the full tour unfortunately because today wasn't English Tour Day.

Fountain in the courtyard of the Rathaus.

Main square in central Hamburg

WWI memorial in the square.

Canal.

Pretty swans!

Attempting to get photo with swan #1

Attempting to get photo with swan #4 (the intervening two were even more rubbish)

Then we headed over to the Church of St. Nikolai, which turned out to be a ruin, much to Greg's surprise (he had been on Hamburg planning). It was ruined during an allied bombing in WWII, and rather than be rebuilt, it had been secured in it's current state as a memorial (Option for ChCh Cathedral, we mused?) The bell tower was the only thing still standing, and they had installed a lift so you could go up it and enjoy panoramic views of Hamburg, which we did. 

'Panoramic' may have been a little optimistic given that half the view was presently obscured by scaffolding, but the information at the top was interesting: it documented how the church had come to be ruined, but rather than taking the opputunity to damn the allies for attacking a civilian town (the bombing killed hundreds and left thousands wounded and homeless), the author took the angle that actually the Germans themselves had brought the allied attack down on their heads with their own attacks on civilian population and other atrocities towards the innocent under Hitler's rule. 

The memorial also had some sculpture and other artwork commemorating various aspects of the war, and a small informtion area underground that we didn't go into. We also had the dubious pleasure of being there at midday when the bells played for almost half an hour, a variety of tunes. It was very nice but since the tower was exposed due to it's partially ruined state, the bells were blimmin' loud and you had to cover your ears!!

 

Then we headed off down the waterfront for a walk in the sunshine. People thronged and buskers played, including a full brass band from likely the local highschool, who seemed to be busking as part of their lesson as at the end of each song the conductor – probably their teacher – would give instruction and sometimes make them play a little section again.

We wandered up through a park and saw a rather imposing statue of Bismark, with an overly large sword. 

We walked through the red light district and got to a small square dedicated to the beatles. Then we caught the underground back to the centre of the town so we could grab some lunch. 

I had wanted to sit water side but the restaurants by the water were all a bit expensive and it was quite hot. We ended up in a cafe inside a shopping arcade, where the lunch special was good value and rather nice, and the service rather excellent too! 

Then we wandered through the shopping arcades – the shopping in Hamburg seemed to go on and on!

By late afternoon we felt we had seen all that we wanted to see. We knew there was a Euro football match on that night, and Greg was keen to catch that. We decided to chill out at the hostel for what was left of the afternoon. Then we missioned it to the supermarket up the road to stock up on Haribo – as this was our last night in Germany!. We wanted an easy take out dinner, but the street with all the non-chain places looked really dicey so we settle for maccas across the road from the hostel.

We got back to the hostel in time to catch the second half of the game, barely finding seats it was so crowded! Once that was done it was definitely time for sleeps!