Hamburg, Germany

Coming off of our trip to Budapest, we had Hamburg in the diary (as the Brits call their calendar) for the next weekend.  We were able to score some really cheap tickets through Easy Jet (not kidding it was less than 40 GBP for the 2 of us) so we were actually thinking of skipping this trip to have some downtime.  At the last minute, we decided to go and we were so glad we didn't miss out!

We arrived early morning in the cold rain but we decided to walk around anyway.  The city is located on the water and is considered one of the wealthier German cities.  We started off at the Town Hall which is beautiful and made our way to the remains of St. Nicholas Church.  The church and land it stood on was basically gutted during the air raids of WWII and you can feel the intensity as you stand there and observe all of the memorials dedicated to those who died in the war.  The beautiful entrance to the church remains intake but there is no roof.  It was definitely a chilling and interesting experience.

Next stop was St. Michaelis Church which is probably the most well-known church in Hamburg.  We spent some time exploring the inside then strolled through the city past the opera house which was Molly's favorite building.  Despite the weather, we wandered around until it was dark (well, it does get dark around 4pm in the winter so maybe it wasn't that long of a stroll) and took in the water and the city at night.  Somehow, thanks to Matt, we ended up in St. Pauli, Hamburg's red light district.  We didn't stay too long since it was definitely seedy to say the least!

The next morning, we got out of bed early to explore the Fischmarkt (open from 6am-10am) which was packed nice and early.  We wandered into one of the halls where a full on crowd was singing and dancing along to a band and drinking beer....at 8am.  We stayed for a bit to watch how ridiculous drunk people look when you are completely sober and drinking your morning coffee.  Afterwards, we walked through the Alter Elbtunnel which is tunnel that connects central Hamburg with the docks and hopped on the good ol Louisana Star river boat for a tour of the port. We loved the name ship based in Germany. : )

After the boat ride, the weather started to get better so what did we do?  We met up with one of Matt's co-workers and his partner for some beers inside!  One drink turned into multiple and before we knew it we were laughing hysterically with Jason and Chad like we had known them forever.  Afterwards, we continued our walk and ended up having dinner at where else...a Greek restaurant!  The place lured us in because of the local football match that they had on the tv - it was packed and everyone was cheering so hard that you couldn't help but get into it too.  

We spent an extra night in Hamburg and took an early Monday morning flight back to London.  For a rainy weekend and two people who were exhausted, Hamburg offered so much, is a great city and we are so happy we included it within our travels!

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