hamburg (no burgers)

First off hamburgers don’t come from hamburgers. For food you go for the good old schnitzels: they are anywhere anyways. For mid upper price eats go to the restaurant attached to the 25hours hotel. Otherwise as a coastal town go after the fish burgers at st Pauli. It is also near the red light street of Reeperbahn for those who want to see what is a miniaturised Amsterdam. Hamburg was an accidental trip for me. I had three days of work visits in Berlin and five days in London so I randomly picked Hamburg. (After all my prior posts you probably wonder if I work at all :p) 2 days turned out to be just enough for the city. For ease of navigation I started with a walking tour but you could well have done it by yourself. Start at the Townhall and gradually walk south and cover all the little islands within the city. For the old: go for st Nikolai the bombed out church that was never reconstructed. It does have a panorama deck but skip that for st Michael’s deck instead. Go to deichdtrase and check out the canals hidden behind it. You get your true hanseatic vibe. The question is how does it compare with the Dutch canals. I’d say it is different. A different atmosphere. It’s for one no doubt more gothic. The streets are less dense. And hamburg always have that rainy overcast wet weather - to live here 365 days is depressing - but for visitation and photo ops it just casts a different atmosphere altogether. For the new go to the Philharmonic and pretty much the entire stretch from there. You should be able to stop by the maritime museum as well as a couple of more quirky ones like the chocolate museum along the way Add one more final area which is a stroll around alster lake. A couple of hotels like the le meridien have sky bars for you to chill outdoors and I liked it I did not do any day trips outside the city but a popular one is Lübeck which was the historical center of the Hanseatic League, so that’s something you can add if you have a day to spare Everywhere is extremely walkable. There is an underground and it’s by honor code. I haven’t been ticket checked for my two days there but probably best to still buy your tickets