Bob:

The weather outlook for the morning was good, so after breakfast we decided to try the new Volksmarch in downtown Hamburg. Using Hamburg's excellent network of busses, subways, and elevated trains, we worked our way down to Landungsbruecken, the main dock for passenger ships on the River Elbe. Searching for the starting point, we ran across the first public water fountain I have ever seen in Germany, and we took advantage of it for a quick sip before continuing down the street along the docks.

We found the Kapitaen Pruesse headquarters (and gift shop) at Bruecke 3 (dock #3) by the clock tower. We enquired at the counter about the Hamburg Volksmarch, and after we paid our 3 Euro (about $5 for both of us) the man took out a small plastic box and extracted two start cards and an instruction sheet with a map on the back side. The instructions were, of course, in German, but the map had the route and the checkpoints marked clearly on it, so foreigners should be able to find their way around town. To help foreigners get the checkpoints right, I will put the answer to each of the four checkpoints in this summary.

The first stretch of the Hamburg Volksmarch was along the River Elbe to the East. The first major landmark was an old tunnel underneath the river that can be traversed by pedestrians for free. You can either take the stairs down to the tunnel or ride down on one of the car-carrying elevators, but we thought riding the old, creaky car elevators was a lot more fun. Walking through the tunnel to the other side of the river is a short optional excursion, but I highly recommend it since it gives you great views up and down the river. I enjoyed the wall decorations we encountered while walking underneath the river; back in those days the builders wanted some beauty even in a purely functional thing like a tunnel.

Monika:

Bob:

You have to take another car elevator up on the other side of the Elbe, and once at the surface you must walk out and completely around the entrance building to get to he riverbank, but the views are certainly worth it. From that vantage point you will see the Elbe spread out to your right and left as far as the eye can see. The inner harbor and most of downtown Hamburg lies to your right (East) while the main channel downstream to the commercial harbor area and North Sea lies to your left (West). You get a great view of the Hamburg city skyline across the way, which is marked by the spires of five historical churches and the Rathaus (City Hall). Plus, at almost any time of the day or night you will almost certainly see river traffic of some kind, be it tugboats, ferries, tour boats, or passenger ships of various sizes chugging along up or down the river.

After walking back through the tunnel we turned left and continued along what is essentially a levee almost to the circa 1900 Fish Market building. The Fish Market is still in commercial use on the weekend and well worth the short side trip for a visit if you are there on a market day. However, the actual walk route turned off into a triangular cobblestone-paved plaza just before the Fish Market and proceeded a bit uphill to a fancy fountain that was our first checkpoint. For Checkpoint #1 you must write down the dates that the fountain was constructed and the date it was renovated (1742 and 1989, respectively). The bronze statue atop the fountain was of Minerva, the Roman goddess of fertility, according to Monika, which would probably explain the, ahem, generous attributes she displayed.

Monika:

Bob:

From the fountain we walked northward past a pretty church and then turned right to amble through the Reeperbahn section, known world wide as the red-light district of Hamburg. Prostitution is legal but tightly regulated in Hamburg, and the Reeperbahn is one place it is allowed, so if you take this walk at night you can expect to be accosted both by the touts enticing you into the various nightclubs along the way (DO NOT GO IN AND ABSOLUTELY DO NOT BUY ANY DRINKS!) and possibly the ladies themselves, especially if you take the detour described by our instructions as suitable "only for males over 18 years of age"! Sex shops and a casino or two round out the Reeperbahn district, but in the morning not much was going on anywhere except restocking the bars and bistros, and the garishly decorated nightclubs and bars looked a bit tawdry in the bright sunlight.

From the Reeperbahn our route jogged North to the stadium area, which contains the soccer field for the local St. Pauli soccer team, which was currently being renovated. The second checkpoint question was the date the St. Pauli club was founded, and that was stated clearly as "1910" on the big sign at the entrance. Crossing one end of the stadium's parking lot, which is turned into the annual Hamburg "Dom" or festival (see Wanderung 5), we entered a long park that follows the outline of the city wall that surrounded Hamburg in medieval times. This park, now called "Planten and Blomen", has many trees, flower beds and even "water organ" that consists of a fountain and light displays choreographed to match music selections. Since the water organ only plays in the evening during the warmer parts of the year, we had to content ourselves with enjoying the trees and flowers while wandering through the park. Visiting at the end of a rainy summer, the vegetation was generally lush and green, and in fact I think I even saw a Sequoia tree growing there.

Monika:

Bob:

At the end of the park we curled around under two bridges that span a narrow isthmus between the Binnenalster and Aussenalster (inner Alster and outer Alster), a small and large lake in the middle of Hamburg. Smack between the two bridges we found a graceful bronze statue of a boy feeding a sea gull that was our third checkpoint. The question for that checkpoint was the name of the artist who had created the statue, which was "Fritz Fleer". From the statue we circled halfway around the Binnenalster and past the beautiful marble archways of the Alster Arcade into the heart of downtown Hamburg.

The Rathaus or Hamburg City Hall is a building a city block long with intricate Baroque-style architecture anchored by a central clock tower that looked rather like a large church steeple. That clock, like all the others I saw during our trip to Germany was set at precisely the right time. The fourth checkpoint was the street number on the front of the Rathaus, which turned out to be a quite tiny number "1". On past visits to Hamburg we have taken the tour of the Rathaus, and I would highly recommend seeing the remarkable interior decorations if you have an hour or two to spare. Across the plaza in front of the Rathaus is a small food court with a nice selection of food vendors but only limited seating space. We had some spaghetti with a cream sauce and enjoyed it despite having to eat standing up.

Monika:

Bob:

From the Rathaus we followed a "Fleet" back down to the harbor area. The difference between a "Fleet" and a canal is that a Fleet has slowly flowing water whereas a canal (think Venice) has basically stagnant water. We saw a couple of graceful bridges as we walked along the promenade down to the River Elbe, and in fact Hamburg has 2,300 odd bridges, most of which are utilitarian but some of which are quite graceful and pretty.

Back at the harbor we walked past some of the historic ships to return to the starting point. I especially enjoyed the old square-rigged sailing ships like the Rickmer Rickmers with their spider's web of masts and rigging reaching up into the sky. The steamship Cap San Diego is a museum ship and has a nice exhibition on the emigration of Germans to the U.S. from 1880-1930, but that detour would have consumed another hour or more, so we continued back to the start/finish point where the man at the counter stamped our books.

Monika:

Bob:

Having already purchased a mass transit card for the day, we decided to take the commuter ferry boat from the Landungsbruecken downriver and back. The entire trip took the better part of an hour and we had a great view of the harbor from the upper deck of the ferry. Although the Hamburg shipyards still have the huge dry-docks that do renovations on small and medium-sized vessels, the river is too shallow to work on the really big freighters now in service. Still, small and medium sized container ships were busy offloading cargo at several of the quays we saw on our way downstream.

By the time we were finished with our mini-cruise, it was getting dark and we were quite tired, so we took the train back to Barmbek and the bus back to Heinke and Gustl's place, stopping off at a store to purchase the bulky, heavy items like soap, shampoo, mouthwash, and toothpaste that we had left out of our packing. That evening we had a very comfortable dinner, after which we watched the German version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" for an hour and then chatted for a while before turning in for the night.

Monika: