When we arrived in Hamburg in early September for our first visit to Germany’s big port city, we weren’t sure what it would be like; cities sometimes have reputations that go before them and leave new visitors wondering.
But almost from the moment we got off the train from Munich, had lunch at the station and headed off to find our apartment, it became obvious that if nothing else, Hamburg is a city full of bits and pieces and sights to be seen while rambling.
The immense station itself, pulling together dozens of main and regional lines in an incredibly complex web, drew us back to shop and to sightsee many times, but on Day 1, when we left the station to walk the few blocks to our apartment we found others worth noting, too.
That would include the massive city central library building, which has three more floors below the ones you see here, and which are guarded by the whimsical literary giants at the top.
If that weren’t enough, filling a wedge between the station and the library is the massive Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, or Arts and Crafts. Opened in the 1870s, and based on the same idea as London’s Victoria and Albert, it has an amazing range of applied and decorative arts—and like many museums we visited, a frank discussion of provenance, and how the museum is dealing with objects that came to it after being taken by the Nazi regime from original owners.
Heading away from the library, the other end of the station adjoins the Hamburg Kunsthalle, spread over several buildings and one of the world’s major encyclopedic museums. The building itself is worth time to explore, including the exterior, seen above.
Of course, there are always dissenters in the world of art, and this pair showed a giant yellow cheese sculpture inside the Hauptbahnhof, asking on their flag: “Is this art, or cheese?” Opinion reserved. But not all of Hamburg’s art is in museums; there are artistic inscriptions on buildings, for example, such as these.
And there are many noteworthy buildings, and not just such monumental ones as the station or the City Hall, or Rathaus, below, and its tower.
Here, for example, are a pair that are quite different from each other, and yet make good neighbors, each wonderful in its own way.
Some have a grandeur that belies their mundane use; the ground floor of this one is occupied by an upscale cigar store, and around the corner is this elegant site that is earning a living as, yes, a Starbucks.
The home of a well-to-do medicine manufacturer of the late 19th century keeps up its appearance, but the ground floor is given over to a fast-food and carry-out Asian restaurant.
Speaking of re-purposed buildings, Hamburg has many; it’s still one of the world’s largest ports, but the main working areas are across the channel from the original docks, due to cargo containerization. That left a large area of solidly-built brick warehouses, called Speicherstadt, or Warehouse City. They’ve become apartments, museums and small industry. Their design is unique to Hamburg, but like other major ports they are equipped immensely strong floors and fittings for cranes to lift cargo in.
An odd juxtaposition: a modern apartment block appears to have captured the spire of St. Michael’s Church.
Hamburg also has a fair amount of random sculpture, some free-standing and some embedded in building facades, and ranging from maudlin to whimsical with stops between.
On the pathetic side, this statue memorializes a woman who eked out a living selling lemons to tavern-goers, where she became a well-known city figure. Yet, impoverished, alcoholic and mentally ill, she was sent to a mental hospital, where she died twenty years later. Nonetheless, she continued to be the subject of sentimental and satrical plays for many years—makes you want to say, “Shame on you, Hamburg!” The inscription on the pedestal reads “Your life was as sour as lemons, would remembrance of you be worth it? Your destiny points to all the people for whom happiness has no time.”
A fairly modern building with medieval style references including these two medallions installed on the wall.
A bank with armed, if stoned guards, and the city’s manhole cover, showing the crest of Hamburg as a Free and Hanseatic City, its official title even today.
