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Published: November 30th 2019
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Tunnel
Ake's trademark, the "tunnel" photos. This is an unusually good one. Notice the reflections in the glass on the right side. Hamburg - or how to squeeze in Paul McCartney, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Greta Thunberg in one blog
Here is the third and last blog entry from when we were in Germany. It will be focused on what we did in Hamburg.
We can start by telling that although Hamburg was part of the Hanseatic League there is no trace left in the city of that era. If you want to see well preserved Hanseatic League cities Tallinn in Estonia, Visby and Stockholm in Sweden and Riga in Latvia are excellent places to go to. Hamburg has a lot of other things to offer, as you will see in this blog. So let us go to what you can see in Hamburg instead of what you can't.
Speicherstadt The district
Speicherstadt used to be an important part of the port of Hamburg. The buildings there are mostly old warehouses. Some of them are still used as warehouses but others are today utilised for other purposes.
Most of the buildings in Speicherstadt are build from red bricks which makes the district very distinct in character and very different from the rest of Hamburg.
Speicherstadt
The district Speicherstadt used to be an important part of the port of Hamburg. One of the old warehouses in Speicherstadt houses the Miniatur Wunderland, which we are going to write about next.
Miniature Wunderland One of the most popular attractions in Hamburg is
Miniature Wonderland, the largest model railway in the world. When we came there we thought that we would perhaps see it all in one hour or so. We stayed there four entire hours! That gives you an idea of how large this attraction is and how much there is to see.
To call it a miniature railway does not accurately describe what this actually is. The core of the displays is toy trains but it is the scenes and the landscapes they have created that really took the breath out of us. Many of the sections are created using real places as inspiration. Some examples of places they have used as inspiration are Hamburg, Venice, Switzerland, Austria and Scandinavia. Part of the Scandinavian display can be seen in this film. If you have been to the town Kiruna in far north in Sweden you might recognise bits and pieces.
One of the most popular sections
Speicherstadt
The buildings in Speicherstadt are mostly old warehouses. Some of them are still used as warehouses but others are today utilised for other purposes. in Miniatur Wunderland is Knuffingen Airport. Before they built that scene they studied several airports to make the movements of planes come out as accurate as possible. We took a film of that display as well.
When walking around in Miniatur Wunderland it is very addictive to look for details. If you look carefully you can find actor and bodybuilder
Arnold Schwarzenegger, environmental activist
Greta Thunberg,
the Millenium Falcon, a couple having a romantic moment and much more. Most of the interesting details we probably missed altogether simply because we didn't know where to look or what it was we saw.
Elbe Tunnel Perhaps a tunnel is not the first thing you think of as a tourist attraction. But the
Elbe Tunnel is just that - a tunnel which is also a tourist attraction. It was built to make it easier for workers in the docks to get to and from work. It was built in early 20th century and mainly it was planned for pedestrians and bicycles. It is possible to go by car as well but it is inconvenient since you have to take an elevator to get down into the tunnel.
Speicherstadt
Most of the buildings in Speicherstadt are build from red bricks which makes the district very distinct in character and very different from the rest of Hamburg. Reeperbahn and the Beatles Before the pop group the Beatles became one of the best selling musical acts in the world they played in bars and night clubs in Hamburg. The places where they played were all near the street Reeperbahn, which is also where Hamburg's red-light district is. We saw two Beatles related sites near Reeperbahn. Kaiserkeller, one of the nightclubs where they played, and Beatlesplats where there is an unusual sculpture of the band.
The paternoster lift We have friends who live in Hamburg. They brought us into an office building and showed us a so called
paternoster lift. Traditional lifts have one "cabin" and it can at a specific moment either go up, down or be stationary. A paternoster lift consists of several "cabins" that go around in a circular motion. So the lift actually goes both up and down simultaneously but is never stationary (unless it is out of order). We had more fun than you can possibly imagine when we were riding the paternoster lift. We took a film of it so you can get an idea of what it looks like.
Speicherstadt in Miniatur Wunderland
Miniatur Wunderland is located in one of the old warehouses in Speicherstadt. One of the exhibitions in Miniatur Wunderland is showing a miniature version of Speicherstadt. By the way, a male person living in Hamburg is actually called a Hamburger... Well, we think that is funny...
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Rainyb
Lorraine Brecht
Thanks for sharing.