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Wanderung 5

Happy Haus for Holt’s in Hamburg.

February - April 2004

April 6 - The Hamburg Rathaus - city hall

We bought a group S-Bahn ticket and headed in to Hamburg with the goal of seeing the Rathaus at last. Along the way Lois again tried in vain to cash a Traveler’s Check. And although the Hummel-Hummel statue at the Dresdner Bank seemed to have lots of money (it was glued on), we found that the bank would not cash a traveler’s checks. They informed us that the only way to cash one of those in Hamburg was to find an American Express office. There aren’t all that many Amex offices in Hamburg, but fortunately for us, one of those offices was in the Hamburger Abendblatt (evening newspaper) office building just across the marketplace from the Rathaus, so it was almost on our way. Even better, there were some stalls right on the marketplace selling tacky tourist items, and Lois finally found her Hamburg T-shirt.

After the excitement of finding Lois’s T-shirt, the tour of the Rathaus was almost anti-climactic. The tour was in German, but Monika tried to keep Lois apprised of the main points about each of the rooms we visited. Lois thought the Rathaus was “perfectly magnificent” and we enjoyed our second visit. Since I had heard most of the spiel before, I concentrated on getting the pictures I wanted from each of the rooms while Monika translated. The Lower House was plainer than the “senate” side, but that is misleading because the two really serve quite different functions.


 

The Free and Hanseatic city of Hamburg has a long history of democratic rule by the city citizens or buergers. The Parliament is called the Buergerschaft with a Lower House elected directly by the citizens, which passes city ordinances. The upper house or senate functions more like a city cabinet to execute the laws. In a nutshell, the Lower House directly elects the mayor of Hamburg and then must approve each of his choices for the senate. The right to become a citizen and vote was limited initially to males earning over 1,000 units of money who swore an oath of allegiance to the city. Altho the right to citizenship and voting was limited, this form of democracy went back to at least the 16th Century in Hamburg according to Monika and seems to have functioned quite well for hundreds of years. It was at least efficient enough to keep them out of the clutches of the various dukes and such that ruled each of the surrounding provinces and would clearly liked to have annexed Hamburg and its trade money.

As buildings go, the Rathaus really was enormous, covering a city block. It had more rooms than Buckingham Palace in Britain, according to the guide, but of course we just saw what he described as the “pretty ones”. The silver, bronze, and mother-of-pearl inlays on the door panels were just as nice as I remembered on my last visit, and the doorways with columns and filigree were often exquisite works of art. Painted frescoes on the ceiling added to the overall artistic impression and the baroque ornamentation in many rooms was the creamy white and gilt pattern that I enjoy so much.

The one room we could not visit was the mayor’s antechamber due to the fact that he was working in it that day. I thought I heard the guide say he worked every Tuesday, so if you come and visit the Rathaus you might schedule your visit for a day other than Monday or Tuesday. While you are at it you should check on the availability of English tours. None were offered the day we visited, so apparently the availability of such tours depends on some mysterious “X” factor like the availability of English-speaking tour guides. Having had one such tour, however, I would judge that you get far less information on the English tour than a German tour, so if you can learn German or marry a German before you go, take the German tour. We did see a painting of the Senate in their traditional costumes, which looked for all the world like academic regalia but weighed 35 kilograms each. They were stylish, however, and had that huge ruffled collar that you ordinarily see on paintings of old English kings or such. Monika said that ruffled collars like that were worn by the ministers in her church as late as the 50s; it must have been quite a sight. The wall painting of the senators at the dedication of the Rathaus in their ruffled gowns was certainly impressive.

The last stop in the tour was the Festhalle (Festival Hall) that had a bare floor on this visit rather than being crowded with a lot of chairs on our visit last year (see Wanderung 2), giving us a clear field of view, so to speak. I was able to get much better pictures of the massive columns at the end and surrounding the doors on the side than I had last year, and they were really impressive. I also photographed the side windows set in huge archways just to get some feeling of the size of the room. The guide said that they routinely had meals with over 400 people in that hall and that in a pinch they could squeeze in up to 800 sitting or 1000 standing.

We decided on seeing the Museum fuer Kunst und Gewerbe (Museum for Art and Crafts) with Lois, but first we stopped off for lunch at Karstadt as we walked over toward the Hauptbahnhof area where the museum was located. Entrance to the Etruscan exhibit bumped the price up to 10 Euro each instead of the normal 8.20, but I think it was worth it. A lot more seemed to be known about the Etruscans than was the case 30 years ago, primarily from a careful study of the burial goods and paintings in their tombs. So we spent a hour or so with the Etruscan artifacts and a film about the rise and fall of their civilization.

The Etruscans were great metalworkers (who knew?) and produced wheeled incense burners and other things that might have been toys (to my mind) but probably served some far more serious purpose in their mind. They also worked gold into beautiful patterns, mostly jewelry, and created bronze goods of many types. The collection included bronze helmets, spear tips, and breastplates plus bronze containers of one type or another that were all beautifully formed.

The most beautiful objects were clearly the large variety of vases, pots, and bowls. Altho some was the red and black Greek-type pottery, other pieces had a pure black glossy surface with designs inscribed on them in a fine filigree pattern. At least I think that was how it was produced, but I’m absolutely certain the end result was a wonderfully delicate line drawing in kind of a reverse white-on-black pattern. The flowing robes, faces, and hair were depicted in fine, flowing lines and it was quite an interesting effect.


 

We took time out from the Etruscans to pass thru the gallery containing art that imitated nature. This time I had my photographic license and could get some pictures of the softly glowing forms, wall carpets, and beautifully melted glass. Lois thought some of was very impressive, but wanted to try out the chairs made of reeds that they wouldn’t let us sit on. Lois, being a good American, was obedient and didn’t sit on them so SHE didn’t get scolded. Good girl!


 

Monika and I did, however, get scolded when we visited the old instrument section on the first and second floors. I was politely reminded to not use flash when I took a picture of some of the old guitars hanging there (Bad Bob! No biscuit!), and Monika was asked to not jump up on the platforms to get a better look inside the harpsichords (Bad Monika! And she couldn’t hide behind the “this is a foreign language” excuse.). The docent was quite polite about these reminders, however, and took pains to show us some of the unique things that would not have been obvious from the plaques. He gave us some earphone players so that we could hear recordings of the harpsichords being played as well as descriptions of how they were built. One sorry fact was that during the French Revolution literally hundreds of harpsichords had been destroyed as symbols of royalty, a sad fate for innocent and quite beautiful instruments.


 

Lois, of course, was more interested in the old oboes in the case in the back and a 18th century dress. She has played oboe in bands and orchestras all her life. Since her 18th century Band of Musick uses antique instruments for some of their performances, she was genuinely interested in how those old oboes looked and played. Her interest in the 18th century dresses was equally genuine because she has to sew authentic recreated costumes for the male and female players in her group, and she likes to get the details of their construction correct. The case also had the hurdy-gurdy we had seen on our last visit plus assorted old bassoons and the like.


 

We were getting pretty tired by this point so we headed back to the front desk, but our friendly docent waylaid us in the corridor and invited us in to a gallery of late medieval art. That gallery featured one of the earliest carved Madonna figures and two entire scenes from the life of Christ carved into a tiny burl of boxwood. We were too tired to correctly appreciate all the other treasures in that gallery and finally headed home. But it is only fair to say that the Kunst und Gewerbe museum has four galleries on each floor and 4 floors, so there was a lot that we never saw even after two half-day visits. If you visit, I would advise a purchase of the photography permit for 4 Euro so that you can take all the pictures you want, but without flash!


 

We worked our way back on the trains to Reinbek for the evening and had a comfortable time with crossword puzzles, reading, and writing while watching TV now and then. This pattern was something of a tradition in Monika’s family—her father was known to read a book, listen to the radio, and simultaneously carry on conversations with people in the other room. But we faded out, as we usually do, shortly after nine o’clock and turned in for the night. As Lois put it when we staggered upstairs, “We sure are a lively bunch!”

Copyright 2004 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
Prolog Map Epilog

February 2004
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April 2004
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