This was the day the US celebrated its 250th Independence Day, but to be honest, that sort of passed us by here in Germany. Today, we met with Imke and Klaus, who came to Hamburg yesterday, so that we could do a little tour of the harbor area together. Imke knows Hamburg fairly well, because two of her sisters live here, but she had not done any conventionally touristy things in a while. Unfortunately, we had a gray and for the most part drizzly day in the 60s, which made this less fun than it would have otherwise been–as much as it represents the classic Hamburg “Schietwetter” (just what you think it means) to which a whole gift shop is dedicated at the train station!
But we were undaunted and equipped with raincoats and with public-transportation day tickets for Imke and Klaus, and met up at their hotel very close to the train station at 9 am and took the newest of Hamburg’s subways, the U4, to its terminal station, Elbbrücken, which has a beautiful view and design but is very empty. The U4 stations along the harbor are sort of built for the future of the city, and the area, which was once industrial and is now gradually becoming residential, is mostly still empty. A large luxury high rise project right by the station went bankrupt, and we were pretty much the only ones who got out at the station, just to see it, and then took the train back 5 minutes to get out at the Überseequartier station, which is right in the part of HafenCity that is now fully residential, with fancy harbor view high rises and little shops. Imke and Klaus had not walked through there and were impressed. Our main goal was to walk to the Elbphilharmonie, or Elphie, which has become the architectural beacon of this area, but is also very controversial because it costs so much to build (i.e. so much more than anticipated, mostly carried by Hamburg taxpayers) and, counter to promises made when it was first proposed, now charges an entry fee just to go up to the top for the views (the tickets to the concerts are outrageous and definitely not affordable for most). Nonetheless, the building is beautiful and the harbor views are stunning (even on a gray day).
After our walk around the Elphie observation deck (it goes all the way around), we briefly looked at the Speicherstadt, the former main harbor warehouse area from the late 19th century, which is now a combination of offices, condos, stores, and tourist attractions–above all the fantastic, multilevel, multi-building model train set that is known as the miniature wonderland. We did not go this time because Imke is not fond of crowds, but Mark has been three times. Since the drizzle intensified, we decided to duck into a lovely little café in the nearby Deichstraße, overlooking (from indoors!) a canal called Nikolaifleet, which shows the very last of the old half-timber houses along the harbor, which were for the most part torn down to make room for the Speicherstadt. We’d been there before, but it was all new to Imke and Klaus, which was fun.
Refreshed and a little warmer and drier, we continued along the harbor front, where Imke hadn’t been since the quay was broadened and elevated by a few meters (to 8.90 m above sea level) to ward off future floods. We caught one of the “bus boats” that cross the harbor as part of the public transportation system (the same one Mark and Peter took a couple of days ago), which gave us a lovely and dry tour of the harbor as part of Imke and Klaus’ day tickets (why people take the actual for-pay harbor tours here has always been a bit of a mystery to me). We took the boat all the way across the Elbe to Finkenwerder, and then back to the Altona “Dockland” pier, where we disembarked in search of a nice place to have lunch (we decided not to go back to the main harbor area, Landungsbrücken, because we knew that the big annual pop music parade, Schlager Mov, was imminent and clogging up the area with people (rain and all, 200,000 people showed up).
Getting out at the deserted Dockland pier, I was a bit concerned that it would be a hike until we got anywhere with food, but as luck would have it, there is a lovely old traditional fish restaurant right a couple of hundred yards from the dock, with a nice view, beautiful atmosphere and yummy food. There was only one non-fish dish, though, since it IS specifically a fish restaurant, but Mark, who is not a fish eater, was pretty happy with his lamb in cream sauce with spätzle! (Klaus had it too, but because he only trusts his favorite Bremerhaven fish restaurant for good fish.) Imke and I had an asparagus gratin with a large prawn on top, small but delicious. After our meal, we headed up a few steps (honestly, fewer than I thought) got get back to the “Altona balcony” for one last look at the harbor, and then walked back past the Altona town hall and city park with its hideous ginormous fountain (where Mark and I were a short three weeks ago to check out the Altona Museum) to the train station. We took Imke and Klaus back to the main station and their hotel, chatted for a bit. They were planning to rest for a bit and then probably go to one of Klaus’ beloved book stores and a bite to eat before calling it a day.
Mark and I headed home to Peter and Andrea’s, and Andrea made us a fabulous meal. She felt she hadn’t cooked for us the whole time I was here–and as much as that was great because she had a lot going on, the meal made clear what we’d been missing! She is a fantastic cook and I loved every bite. We wrapped up the day by watching a beautiful, thought-provoking German movie, In die Sonne schauen (The Sound of Falling), which was (characteristically) heavy fare and kept us talking for quite a while before we headed to bed at about 11:30.
