Adventure home
Torch and night watchman
Like a ship's bow: a corner of the chile house
It's Friday night, the moon shines over the Port of Hamburg, and the lights of the ships are reflected in the water. Normally I would have been sitting in the pub with friends for a long time. Instead, I hold a torch in my hand.
Favorite church of the hamburger: the Michel
With twenty people I stand in the Speicherstadt, a historic part of Hamburg, and listen to the night watchman. In fact, a city guide who dressed up as a night watchman.
Tugs at the jetties
The others also come from Hamburg and the surrounding area. They are at a birthday party and also visit the Speicherstadt for the first time. Funny: I was born in Hamburg and determined to drive here 10,000 times. But I have never looked at this corner. And that annoys me. I know Reykjavík and Nice, but why do not I care so much about Hamburg?
Tourist and BYM author Andrea Walter
This will change this weekend. I want to discover your own city as a tourist. My program: Tonight the tour through the Speicherstadt. Tomorrow I will climb the Michel and make a harbor cruise, then stroll to the famous Chilehaus and see the shops in the old town. For the evening I booked a tour of St. Pauli.
Low German
Great freedom: St. Pauli by day
"Well, dear Deern," says Volker Roggenkamp, the city guide, and grins as broadly as he speaks, "where is the date?" He speaks a wonderful Low German. We walk through the Speicherstadt, passing carpet stores, canyons and the Spice Museum. Roggenkamp snaps, and I listen carefully.
The largest park cemetery in the world: Ohlsdorf
Look at the brick houses with the turrets and freight elevators and marvel at everything that I had no idea before. Built on thousands of wooden posts in the 19th century, the Speicherstadt is the world's largest historic warehouse complex. At that time, 20,000 people had to be relocated, the half-timbered houses of the workers, Baroque palaces and Renaissance villas were simply demolished.
Brick houses and bridges: the Speicherstadt
In the morning I walk from my apartment to the St. Michaelis Church, the landmark of the city. I want to climb the tower and see everything from a different perspective.
Grave of a star: Here rests Hans Albers
Why, I ask myself on the way, do you always walk through the same streets? Once I leave my front door, I have the choice: right or left around, main or side street. Most of the time, I always go on the same side of the street. Just like now. And after a few minutes, I find myself in my regular café again. "A small latte to take away," I say like every morning.
Michel
Historic houses next to the Michel
I have to admit that getting out of the rut and walking around is not easy. When I travel, my senses are switched to reception: Nice smells of oranges, croissants and sunscreen. In Iceland, the air is as fresh as glacial ice. Only Hamburg does not tickle my nose, maybe because I imagine it smells like it always did.
Tasty: Andrea eats Labskaus - a sailor's dish made of meat, potatoes and beetroot
Then I climb up the 453 steps of the Michels, stand on the viewing platform and look at the city: the harbor, the town hall, the sailing boats on the Alster. Cars and people look like from a Playmobil catalog. I usually belong to them, walk around the city like them every day, somewhere, without even looking aside. I get a guilty conscience: why does one not pay more attention to one's own city? Hamburg suddenly does not seem so common anymore.
In the old Elbtunnel
And now I'm really looking forward to the harbor cruise. The barge swings on the Elbe, the smell of diesel hangs in the air. We drive past huge docks and container ships that are being loaded. I once saw a similar container on a railroad car while waiting at a barrier in Australia. "Hamburg" was on it. I remember that it touched me a bit then.
port
My Hamburg tour feels like a puzzle game to me. Slowly, fresh and familiar images come together to form an unknown, new home-feeling. Even smells are part of it. I smell the coffee stored in the Speicherstadt and the diesel of the harbor barges.
Chile house
If you have holidays, you will also take breaks: enjoy the sun in the harbor
At lunchtime I look at the Chilehaus, one of the most important buildings of Expressionism in Germany - but I have never taken any time for it, while a friend lives nearby. It is a dark clinker house with white window frames, at one corner it runs together like a ship's bow.
Always open, but a bit drab during the day: the pubs in St. Pauli
In the afternoon I go on a city tour of St. Pauli. I already know some things, but a lot is new: I had no idea that the prostitutes only ever stand on one side of the Davidstraße, because on the other side is restricted area. It is precisely these details that make my home much livelier.
Grand Harbor Tour: After a good hour, you know where containers are being loaded and how incredibly large ship propellers are
Still, it's kind of weird to run over the Reeperbahn during the day. It all seems a bit sad, so gray and different than at night when you only see the neon signs and not the lace curtains in the windows. After the tour, I walk alone for some time through St. Pauli, go down to the harbor. There I discover the "Seekiste", a shop with maritime antiques and all sorts of bells and whistles, operated by Günther Biller, who used to go to sea himself.
"Every now and then," he says, "you have to get out, otherwise the ceiling will fall on your head, but when you come back to Hamburg, you realize: It's not bad here!" This is of course understated, it is beautiful! And for a moment I am proud that I have managed to travel without going away. In the "Seekiste" I buy a small souvenir - a bottle ship with "Alte Liebe" written on it. Maybe it reminds me not only of Hamburg, but of all the other things that I pay little attention to in everyday life because I take it for granted.
