Wanderung 24

Spring Fling

From March to May 2011

Saturday April 16: Hamburg, Germany (Volksmarch)

Bob:

Monika and I are inveterate Volksmarchers, and since we were blessed with another sunny day (unusual in Hamburg), we decided to spend the day doing the specified 10 kilometer loop around the old downtown area and see what, if anything, had changed over the last few years. After taking a bus to Barmbek, the local train-bus nexus, we opted to hop on the U3 subway to get down to the harbor area where the walk started.

Although the waterfront is being renovated, we found the Kapitaen Pruesse store in its old location on the waterfront near Landungsbruecke (American: Landing Bridge) and paid the 1.50 Euro fee to do the walk. We were pleasantly surprised to see that the walk organizers had taken the trouble to print a beautiful, glossy map of the downtown area with the Volksmarch route clearly marked with a thick red line. The walk instructions on the back were written in German but they may have an English version also--I forgot to ask.

Monika:

We decided, it was time to some serious walking. Hamburg boasts one permanent Volksmarch that we had enjoyed on our last visit. It is a rather well done loop from the Landungsbruecke, the pier area of the harbor to downtown and back along the fleet.

The place we started was Kapitaen Pruesse, a souvenir shop with assorted other businesses like harbor tours, city tours, and who knows what else. In between it also was the start point for the Volksmarch where we paid our money and got the start cards and a rather nice map besides written instructions.

Bob:

The route, in any case, had stayed basically the same since we first did the walk on our last visit to Hamburg during Wanderung 18 in 2008. The first leg was over to the old Elbe Tunnel where we could take a quick detour and walk underneath the River Elbe to the other side and get a great view of Hamburg harbor and the parade of passing river traffic, which we of course did.

Monika:

We first passed the old Elbtunnel and had the option of walking through it to the other side, a 1 kilometer addition, but well worth it. The tunnel was built around 1900. It has two tunnels for cars - one in each direction - and there are pedestrian walkways alongside the car lanes.

Cars have to pay, but pedestrians can go free and there are even pedestrian elevators. So now it is mainly used for tourists, but in the morning and evening people still drive through to get to and from work in the harbor. Walking along the tiled walls is fun since there are tiles of all kinds of sea creatures all along. On the other side, you get a wonderful view of the Landungsbruecke area and the spires of Hamburg behind it.


 

Bob:

Returning through the tunnel, we continued downstream a bit to the Fish Market and along the way found a new addition to the Hamburg waterfront, a World War II German submarine now used as a museum. I believe those subs were built in Hamburg's harbor at the time, so having a submarine museum there is quite appropriate. It looked interesting, but we were in the middle of a Volksmarch and I am known to take hours and hours in museums, so we passed up the opportunity.

From the Fish Market we turned inland to see the historic Minerva Fountain. That was the first checkpoint for our walk, so we dutifully noted the dates the fountain was constructed and then refurbished before continuing uphill past a very pretty little church.

Monika:

From the Elbtunnel we walked along the Elbe. To both of our surprise we saw a U-boat anchored at the a pier and open to the public. Since I am not much for U-boats and we had a Volksmarch to finish we passed on visiting it and went on to the old Fishmarket building. Here on Sunday mornings they still have a fishmarket, plus a market for anything and everything. It truly is "the thing to do" if you are in Hamburg on a Sunday morning.


 

Bob:

Turning right we walked along the Reeperbahn, stopping for a midday snack along the way. The Reeperbahn is next to the port area and originally held a large rope-making facility. Making hemp rope in the days of sail involved walk up and down a long alley while twisting the strands of hemp together into a heavy rope or cable. In English we would call that a "rope-walk" which roughly translates into "Reeper"-"Bahn" if you realize that Plattdeutsch (English: Low German) is spoken in this area which is closer to modern English than High German, so "Reep" = "Rope" and "Bahn" = train or path. A very odd phenomenon that occurs when I listen to Plattdeutsch on the radio is that sometimes I am understanding from the German-speaking part of my mind but sometimes from the English-speaking part of my mind, which is a very strange feeling indeed.

Nowadays, if course, the old ropewalk is long gone as the hemp ropes were replaced by steel cables in the age of steam, but the Reeperbahn now houses the notorious red-light district of Hamburg. Walking there during the day is completely harmless although you may have to ignore drunks stretched out on the sidewalk. Nighttime rambles are another matter altogether, however, and I would advise you to go with friends and keep both your wits about you and one hand on your wallet if you wander the back alleys of the Reeperbahn area at night.

Monika:

From the fishmarket we walked past a famous fountain and ended at the Reeperbahn, another street where the name tells you what its use was several centuries ago, namely making ropes for sailing ships. Nowadays it is the premier street in Hamburg's red light district. Although the nightclubs are garishly lit by night, seeing the places in the day makes them look rather tawdry. But we did find a deli with some sandwiches and found a place to sit down and eat.

Bob:

As we turned North at the end of the Reeperbahn we crossed the Seiller Strasse, and much to my amazement we found an old children's school at exactly the location mentioned in a Hamburgish folk song sung by Heidi Kabel. I thought she made that school up, but no, there it was, big as life--a gigantic building three stories high, in fact. We were both amused by the separate entrances for Maedchen (Girls) and Knaben (Boys).

Our next checkpoint was the St. Pauli Fussball Klub (American: Soccer Club), where we saw the brand-new stadium that had just been under construction during our last visit to Germany. The new stadium looked like a beauty, and it was just too bad that the team wasn't playing well and could be relegated to the minor leagues this year!

Passing by the Heiligengeistfeld where the Hamburg Dom (American: Hamburg City Fair) was being held, we continued to the site of the old city wall. The dismantled wall has been turned into a very long, curving series of parks, flower beds, decorative ponds, playgrounds, and such like, so walking along it for almost 2 kilometers avoided city traffic and was very pleasant.

Monika:

On we went through some of the older parts of the city. This is an old working class neighborhood with large apartment buildings close to the Reeperbahn and harbor area. I was amused to see the name "Seilerstrasse" a street named in one of our Hamburg songs about a mother explaining why she did not want her son to go to the academy but just go to the school on Seilerstrasse. And indeed we found an old elementary school that even had separate entrances for boys and girls.

On we went to the stadium of the soccer club that is in the heart of this area. They had this year made their way up to the top league of German soccer but now were not doing too well and probably are going back down. German soccer has many leagues, the top one is at the national level, others are regional and local. At the end of a season the bottom three clubs of one league are relegated to the next lower and the top three of the lower one can move up. So there is a constant change, which makes matches of the clubs at the bottom as important as matches at the top. Fun to watch.

Walking on we noticed that it was time for the Hamburger Dom, a movable amusement park that is set up twice a year. Since it was still early none of rides were going and no stands were open, so we bypassed it.

Bob:

Following the course of the old city wall, we gradually curved back toward the center of the city and arrived at the Kennedy Bridge that separates the Inner Alster lake from the Outer Alster lake. Underneath the bridge between the two lakes is a statue of a boy with a sea gull, and that was our next checkpoint.

Monika:

We continued to the park that has been created where the old wall used to be that encircled Hamburg. This is an area I know well, since I used to work in a building next to the park and would walk through it on my way to and from work. Flowers were already blooming and it is always a pleasure to walk in this environment.

We finally reached the Aussenalster and walked under the bridges to the Binnenalster.

Bob:

From the statue we walked around the Binnen Alster to get back to the Jungfernstieg and the Rathausplatz we had visited the day before, but this time had to check the number on the door of the Rathaus, which turned out to be number 1. The path of the Volksmarch then followed the side of the Fleet that led from the Inner Alster to the harbor where we rejoined the promenade along the shore of the River Elbe.

Monika:

Back around the Binnenalster we came to the pier, were yesterday we had taken the boat down the fleet. This time we walked along the fleet on a little walkway all the way back to the Elbe and along the Landungsbruecken back to Kapitaen Pruesse. There they stamped our books when we handed the start cards with all the checkpoints back in.


 

Bob:

After having our books stamped by Kapitan Pruesse we called Heinke and Gustl to say we were on our way back. Like the British, the Germans have a tradition of a late afternoon snack although in Germany it is called Kaffeetrinken (coffee-drinking) rather than tea time. Heinke had procured a really nice multi-layered cake, and that plus the freshly brewed coffee we were served when we returned home just hit the spot.

We had a nice, relaxed evening with them, and were only sorry to hear that Gustl had caught Monika's cold (which she had contracted during the cruise), and was starting to have a bit of laryngitis. Still we chatted the evening away and, after a nightcap of champagne, called it a day.

Monika:

By now we really were tired and decided to just call Heinke and Gustl to let them know, we were ready to come home. Heinke had coffee waiting for us together with a wonderful Torte (cake). So we really enjoyed being back home and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening chatting away.


 

Copyright 2011 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
Index
Prolog Map of Transatlantic Cruise Map of Drive in Ireland Epilog

March 2011
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April 2011
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May 2011
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