Wanderung 31

For our second day in Hamburg, we wanted to see the other half of the city center including St Michael's church, the harbor area, and the Reeperbahn red light district. So after breakfast at the bakery next to the train station, we took the S1 train to Stadthausbruecke. Walking to St. Michael's church we walked past a statue of Karl Der Grosse (English: "Charles the Great" or Charlesmagne), who is considered the founder of Hamburg. First we walked to St Michael's church and took a gander at the interior. The inside shape of St Michael's is somehow much more compact and rounded than the basic box or "+" shape of most churches. Aesthetically, the result is a far more "cozy" feeling rather than the grand, austere feeling evoked by larger churches with a traditional long and narrow layout with tall pillars. In addition, the interior is some kind of pure white, smooth plaster that is gracefully sculpted and decorated with gold and dark wood accents, which makes it truly beautiful inside.

But the one thing that St Michael's has that no other church has is a top notch view of Hamburg's downtown and harbor area from a viewing platform just under the copper dome of the steeple. We paid the fee to take the Elevator 10 stories up to the top of the tower and exited onto a grand panorama of the city of Hamburg in all directions. I took many pictures of the harbor, the Inner and Outer Alster, the Rathaus, and the embarkation pier called Landungsbruecken. I was surprised, however, to see that the Hamburg Dom or summer festival was set up in the parking lot of the soccer arena in front of an old WWII bunker which has been converted to apartments, I think. The festival is like a super carnival with rides, games, and lots of places to eat and drink, and it seemed to be open for business. That surely looked like fun.

After peering out in all directions, we traipsed down the stairs past a couple of the really old bells in the bell tower just beneath the viewing platform. We walked downhill a couple of blocks to the harbor, and there we asked around until we found an English+German tour of Elbe and harbor area. After buying tickets, we boarded the Louisiana Queen, an excursion boat tricked out to look like an old Mississippi steamboat, and headed for the top deck to get the best view of things. The Louisiana Queen chugged downstream past the old Altona Fischmarkt (English: Fish market) and the new cruise ship terminal, a very modern building shaped roughly like a ship if you squint your eyes a bit!

Pausing at the Ovelgonne Ship Museum's wharf, the Louisiana Queen then crossed the Elbe to the huge new container freight area on the other side of the harbor. The old WWII era Bloehm and Voss shipyard was still there, although the floating dry docks are now just used to repair and refurbish medium-sized ships such as the QueenElizabeth II.

Given the new cruise ship terminal near the Fischmarkt and one in the newly-renovated Harbor City area of the Elbe, I was quite surprised to see a third cruise ship dock way out in the middle of the container-shipping side of the port with the cruise ship "Aida Prima" berthed there. How do people even get out to that port? Harbor ferries?

After diverting into the container shipping area and being suitably impressed with all the modern cranes and efficient but ugly container ships, we sailed upstream on Elbe to the new Hamburg Philharmonie building and Harbor City area, but that was the end of our tour.

After disembarking, we took the commuter ferry back to the Ovelgonne area, where Monika had grown up. There we had a very pleasant lunch at a riverbank cafe while watching people ambling along the riverside promenade. We then boarded a city bus to Altona Bahnhof, where we stopped at Lidl to buy snacks. Jerry obligingly carried those in his pack for later, and we boarded the S1 train back to the Reeperbahn red-llight district to find the old performance venues of the classic English rock group, the Beatles.

We quickly found "Beatles Platz", complete with 4 stainless steel effigies of the "Fab Four". Up on the Grosse Freiheit (Great Freedom street) we also found the Indra and Kaiserkeller nightclubs where the Beatles first played, but unfortunately they were closed during the day. We continued walking down the Reeperbahn to its end, and I found it to be somewhat tawdry in the harsh light of day and littered with unsightly trash, which is very unusual for Germany.

Turning North a couple blocks to Heiligengeistfeld, we arrived at the Hamburg Dom, or Super Carnival. We wandered the big circuit of attractions, which brought back happy memories for Monika as she used to visit the Dom whenever it came to Hamburg. I couldn't resist a marksmanship game where I shot a bow and arrow into a target that was way too close! Although inaccurate, I did well enough to win a small blue Teddy bear for Monika, which was such fun. We also all took a ride in a funhouse car and then took a spin on the big Ferris wheel, where I got a lot more pictures of the surrounding area.

But by now we were well and truly tired, so we took a train back to the hotel and relaxed a couple hours. Then we had a surprise visit from Detlef and Susanne. Detlef and Linda remembered each other from the time Detlef visited in Chicago when he was a teenager. So they enjoyed catching up (easy because Detlef speaks perfect English), and it was so nice for us to see them again! We had last seen them at Natalie and Jason's recent wedding in Minneapolis, and had suggested that they visit the Wisconsin Dells when driving back to Chicago. They enjoyed that part of Wisconsin, and their only problem coming back to Germany was not being able to refuel the rental car before turning it back in at O'Hare airport, which was aggravating no doubt. When they left we just collapsed for the night.