It's My Life ...& Welcome To It.: Hamburg - A Livable, Lovable City

Sep 9, 2012 Posted From Brooklyn, NY

Note - This post is in three parts (to make it easier on you dear reader). Use the link at the bottom to continue to the additional sections.

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Day 4, Monday, September 3, 2012

We started the day the same way, with a visit to our friendly Stadt Bäckerei (City Bakery - it's a chain) on our corner of Hallerstrasse and Beim Schlump. The manager already knew us, so in addition to our usual breakfast of a half a sandwich and espresso, each day he brought a little treat of some pastry as a reward for our one week of loyalty. We found Hamburgers to be, those that we met, friendly, helpful, of good humor and, as a bonus, conversant in English. That made for a very stress-free and easy week in Germany.

Stacey at Stadt Bäckerei with our smoked salmon and cream sandwich.

After breakfast, we again biked down to the Alster. Our intention was to reach the lake and then turn south until we reached the bottom and the city center. We thought that we would have explore the downtown with our bikes but the flat tire in Stacey's front wheel (that I had fixed a day ago) came back to haunt us: as we reached the downtown area her front tire went down. There were no bike stores around there so we chained the bikes and set out on foot, to deal with the flat later.

Hamburg map - Click to see larger.

Fortunately we were where we wanted to be: at one of downtown's shopping streets - a car-free promenade call Colannaden (The Collanades). Lined with historic buildings and expensive shops, it made for good window shopping if not buying.

Kolannaden (Collanades Street) - a pedestrianized and fancy shopping strip.

Strolling along that street, we arrived at the downtown proper, where the Alster tuns into a canal. It too, was lined with shops and restaurants and opened up on to the broad platz (plaza) on which stood the magnificent Rathaus - City Hall.

Our first view of the Rathaus (City Hall). Majestic and grand.

Hamburg was almost totally destroyed by fire in 1842. It was then rebuilt along a carefully laid out city plan radiating from the bottom of the Alster. Here, in the 1880's, was built this grand Rathaus. You got the feeling that the city fathers were very impressed with themselves and their city, important and wealthy port and trading center that it was. This building was opulent and grand and the sense of its self-importance was palpable as you stood in front of it to take it all in.

Rathaus - I couldn't take it all in with the lens I had.

Ilse, Mirjam's mom, had joined us. She wanted to take us on a guided tour - Ilse has worked in historic preservation and is very knowledgeable on Hamburg and its history. We ventured into the Rathaus. Its lobby was a splendidly decorated as its front but the pièce de resistance is the inner courtyard which took our breath away.

This statue in the inner courtyard of the Rathaus commemorates the
construction of a sanitary water supply after a deadly cholera epidemic.
The building behind is not the City Hall but the Hamburg stock market.

The inner courtyard of the City Hall.

Next on Ilse's tour was the Chilehaus in Kontorhouse (counting house or office) district. Said to contain almost 5 million dark Oldenburg bricks, it's one of the prime examples of the 1920's architectural style known as Brick Expressionism. Massive and impressive, the best view of this masterpiece is from its east end where its sharp lines and angles come together recalling the prow of a ship.

Chilehaus - so named because its developer, despite a severe recession, had
mucho dinero earned from his mining exploits in Chile.

From Chilehaus we walked down to the Warehouse District. This area was intentionally outside the governance of the city proper. The business class wanted the port and its warehouses to be tax exempt and duty free. Sitting along the city's lovely canals, these massive warehouses stored the wares which helped to make Hamburg a powerhouse and a wealthy and prosperous city of Northern Germany.

Hamburg's Warehouse District - now fancy condos on lovely canals.

It was getting late and we still hadn't dealt with Stacey's flat tire. Mirjam and Maya met us back at the Rathaus plaza and she took Stacey and the bike (it's a folding Brompton and allowed on the bus) via bus back to our apartment. I rode my bike back and got there at the same time.

That evening we had dinner with Marie, Almicar and Wolfgang in their apartment - which was on the ground floor and opened onto the backyard - which was more like a city park than a yard. Marie whipped together a wonderful salmon dinner. We added some good wine. A wonderful way to end a perfect day in Hamburg.