Safety
Arriving into Hamburg on a drizzly gloomy Thursday late afternoon, in this time of the year, it also meant that it gets dark early. The path from the Central bus station to the hostel wasn't the most pleasant especially in the dark, with a grittier looking neighbourhood with signs of homeless sleeping on the streets. Being new in the city, you never quite know what to expect, so I was on a slightly higher alert.
After spending a few days in Hamburg, overall I can say I do feel pretty safe walking around the streets of Hamburg in the night.
I've noted the area from the Central train station and East of it tends to be less pleasant. Most of the sights that one should visit and see are mostly located in the Western half from the Central train station, in fact, possibly even after the main city centre. I wasn't too big on the city centre, it being mostly a shopping area, and often bypass it.
Things to See and Do
My favourite neighbourhoods would have to be
Speicherstadt
This area is the largest warehouse complex of its type in the world and is a UNESCO world heritage site. The complex is over 1.5km long, with multiple canals and bridges.
The most iconic view in this area is of "Wasserschloss", a striking building at the end of one of the islands in Speicherstadt, connected by 2 bridges and surrounded by the walls of warehouses.
It took me a while to find this specific viewpoint, just because of how many beautiful buildings and viewpoints there are in this area.
But I found it just in time as the sun was about to set, and caught a few shots in perfect twilight lighting. I got really lucky, especially since it had been foggy most of the time I had been in Hamburg, except for a few short hours when the sun decided to pop out on this day.
There is also the option to take a boat ride through the canals and waterways but since the area is easily walkable, I didn't do the boat option. I did see a boat go through some really tight bends in this area, and that definitely requires good boat navigation skills.
Walking further down from Speicherstadt, you will find another iconic building, Elbphilharmonie - the bottom half is a renovated warehouse, with a glass modern building with wave like patterns on its roof and exterior, built on top of the warehouse, making it a natural fit along the harbour’s waterfront.
It's free to go up to The Plaza of Elbphilharmonie, you just need to wait in line to get a ticket from the counter. They do limit the number of tickets by time slots, so if there's a specific timeslot of preference, tickets can also be booked online for Euro 2 per ticket.
It's also nice walking along the waterfront area. There are a lot of small little cafes/booths selling "Fischbrautchen", which is basically fish in between bread. Not too bad if you want a quick mid day snack. My only gripe is that they were cold, and it would had been nice if they were served warm, especially in cold weather.
There are a lot of different fish you could choose from, I basically took the staff's recommendation of her favourite version of the fischbrautchen, which had a bit of tangy and sweet taste.
The store that I went to is located just next to the Alte Elbtunnel - the oldest river tunnel in Europe (opened in 1911), another sight worth seeing. This reminds me of the one in Antwerp, Belgium.
It appears they were doing upgrades to the tunnel when I was there. Alte Elbtunnel basically connects pedestrians and cyclists from one side of the river to the other, via underground. The length of the tunnel runs 426.5m long, and with a diameter of 5.64m, located 23.5m below sea level.
It does get busy here, especially with convenient antique lifts that brings cyclists and pedestrians up and down the tunnel at each end.
Sternzchanze & Karolinenviertel
This area is one of my favourite neighbourhood to explore. A number of funky streets and cool graffiti art. I even saw a street lined with trees that had numerous shoes hanging from the trees. It was hilarious! I don't know the meaning of the hanging shoes, but I always wondered how they managed to successfully tie them up there.
Even the shops along the streets of Marktstrasse in the area, carry hip and cool clothing which I would consider shopping and buying.
There's a lot of graffiti art around this area, probably not liked by the government for the vandalism, but I personally find it gives the neighbourhood character. One of the most heavily graffitied building would be Rote Flora and the building beside it. It's said to be where the left wing activist movements are usually at.
Also check out the Feldstrasse Bunker while in the area. A super solid cemented building that was built to defend Hamburg from Allied air raids in WWII.
And also the Langerit Hamburg building and surroundings, which appears to be used for legal and jurisdiction purposes.
Reeperbahn and St. Paul District
This is the red light district, but also some interesting vibes here. It also appears to be an area where drag shows and stage performances can be found.
Beatles platz, a square with metal sculptures shaped to commemorate The Beatles can also be found in this area.
I went both in the day and in the evening, but perhaps I wasn't there late enough, so it still seemed rather quiet for a Friday evening.
Inner Alster Lake and Kleine Alster Canal
Located at the city centre, Inner Alster Lake is a picturesque lake, mostly because of the beautifully architectured buildings surrounding the lake. In the centre of the lake is the Alster fountain that jets out water quite high, reminding me of the one in Geneva.
There's also the Alster Arcade along one side of the Kleine Alster Canal which gave off a Venetian vibe when I first saw it.
Not too far from the Canal is the Rathaus or City Hall Building. It's free to enter and worth just taking a look in the area, which doesn't take too much time. You will then exit out into the courtyard, which is worth taking a few photos of.
Churches
There are also a number of noteworthy Churches to visit, including
St. Michael's Church
Music was playing beautifully out of the pipe organs shortly after I arrive. It was so mesmerising I sat and stayed for a while to hear it play.
The interiors are also very classically done, I could almost imagine myself being in a theatre hall, with the pipe organ music playing in the background.
There's also the option to visit the tower and the crypt, which is a paid entrance that I didn't go for.
St. Catherine's Church
It was built in the 14th and 15th century. This city loves their pipe organs it seems, as even the one at St. Catherine is worth taking a look with the sculptures. Interiors are rather simple though, but I love the huge coloured glass window.
St. Nikolas' Church
Built in 1845 - 74, on a site of a 14th century church that was destroyed in Great Fire of 1842. It was later destroyed in 1943-44 leaving just the tower and outer walls, the ruins are maintained as a monument against war.
St. Peter's Church
The oldest church in Hamburg, dating back to 1195. Not my favourite, but since it's located in the centre of town, it's easy to just pop in and have a look.
Dining
Food wise, a lot of places only had menus in German, so I was very hesitant about dining out. To a certain extent, I went with more comfort food, especially with cold foggy days in Hamburg. I had a Korean Chicken Hot Pot stew the night I arrived at Seoul 1988 - not the best Korean stew, but it certainly warmed the tummy very well, and gave me my proteins for the day.
One of the best meals I had was ramen at Momo Ramen, located not too far from Rote Flora in Sternzchanze. I felt I got the best seat in the restaurant with the beautiful geisha background.
I ordered the Momo Special Spicy Miso Ramen and it was absolutely delicious and hit the spot - such a great balance in spice in the thick and creamy broth that was served piping hot. Even the Matcha lemon soda was super tasty. The damage Euro 20.20.
I would also recommend a meal at one of the Portuguese restaurant in Portugisenviertel (Portuguese Quarter). Reservations are strongly recommended, as the 1st two I wanted to try were completely packed. The 3rd restaurant I went to was Taparia O Pescado, and I ordered a plate of mixed fish - it came with a variety of 4 different types of fish, 1 prawn and 1 squid, served with some potatoes and grilled vegetables. The seafood was slightly over done in my opinion, but for the sizing and 500ml of red house wine in a nice restaurant for only Euro 22, I call that a really good value meal. Staff were very friendly too.
I also walked past a pizza restaurant Luigi's which had a long queue, so I decided to have it for lunch the next day. There are mixed reviews online about the staff, but I had the most hospitable staff that were really patient and curious about me, asking where I was from (I said Singapore, and one of the staff asked if it was next to India, which I corrected and said next to Malaysia). I loved the vibe of the restaurant. The staff at the pizza making counter were also entertaining the restaurant guests with pizza spinning antics.
I did say the staff were really hospitable with me (read : flirting), so much so that I was pleasantly surprised by the pizza that was presented - a huge plate with an equally huge pizza, in the shape of a heart! And when it was served, the staff said "With Love ♥️".
I definitely did look at the other pizzas that got dished out of the pizza counter area after that, and I noted all of them were round.
It's not the best pizza I ever had (the crust wasn't crisp enough), but the extra effort brought a big smile and something I will remember for a long time. How many can say they ever had a heart shaped pizza!
I even received a complimentary shot of grappa at the end of my meal along with a handful of sweets.
And since the waterfront is a must do while in Hamburg, so is a must to taste Fischbrautchen, that I had mentioned earlier.
Others
I struggled to purchase a prepaid phone card in Hamburg, which for some reasons all the Vodafone shops I went to ran out of the Euro 10 prepaid card. It appeared they had ran out of it for some time now, with no indications of when it would be restock, putting the blame mostly on covid.
The primary reason why I wanted a prepaid card was to get access to Internet on the go. I did download an offline map of Hamburg on Google which helped, but I also noticed that it was fairly easy to get access to free WiFi networks around numerous parts of the city.
The only thing I encountered where having a reliable WiFi and a local number would be helpful was when dining at restaurants or visiting sights. They needed proof of vaccination (thankfully I had no issues showing the Singapore notarised vaccination cert), but they also required me to complete a "Luca" which seemed to be similar to Singapore's SafeEntry, where personal details are submitted through a QR code.
The challenge is that one of the verifications needed on Luca is to receive a verification pin on a mobile number, and somehow when I attempted Luca the 1st time, I didn't get the code in a timely manner on my Singapore number and thus could not successfully connect to Luca.
I've managed to get away with it a number of times after I explained to them about the challenge of not having a local number, and thankfully had never been denied dining at a restaurant (at times I was given an extra piece of paper to fill my details) or at the City Hall Building, which appears also required a Luca for registration (the security seeing that I wasn't much of a threat and especially since it's a very small section of the City Hall we get to see, I was allowed in).
I've also noted that a lot of things in Hamburg is on a honesty policy mode - the city trains do not have a gantry, so one could easily hop on or off without having to go through any barriers. There are ticket machines at the entrance of the stations, so it's possible that spot checks could be made at any time. Even the hostel I stayed in, the breakfast was on a honesty policy system - after you had purchased breakfast from the reception, you are given a coin, which you then drop into a box at the breakfast area. No one manually collects or check if you had purchased breakfast, so you could also getaway with getting breakfast without paying for it.
I also feel that if one was able to understand German, there would be more things to enjoy in Hamburg. There could had possibly been some performances I may had wanted to catch, but knowing they were often in German, I didn't bother to find out more. This also applies to deciphering a menu, which all were in German. There are certain words which I may have a rough idea, but very often I would find myself second guessing what a number of items would mean in English.
All in all, there were a few highlights that had made the trip to Hamburg memorable, including the twilight view of Speicherstadt, the heart shaped pizza and the Momo Spicy Miso Ramen.
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