I had planned on staying an extra night in Berlin before heading to Hamburg, but by chance I was offered a ticket to the sold out Cat Empire gig in Hamburg that evening. I cancelled my hostel, quickly booked another and jumped on the ICE train.

After dropping my bags off at the hostel, I walked down the road to the Reeperbahn. It is an area with a colourful history and is both the red-light district and the music hub of the city – not unlike Fortitude Valley in its heyday.

I met a young guy out the front of the venue and exchanged some cash for my ticket and went inside. The venue itself was similar to the Tivoli (ironic as the venue next door in Hamburg is also called the Tivoli). The support act was an indie band from Victoria called Tin Can Orange [link?]. I got talking to a few of the people around me and made some friends before the Cat Empire came out on stage. The vibe of the crowd was electric and I was surprised to find that most of the audience knew the songs and were singing along. By the end of the set I was drenched in sweat from dancing and jumping around so much.

After the crowd dispersed and I said goodbye to my new friends I found a funky bar a few doors down and ended up chatting to a German couple from Stuttgart who had flown up to Hamburg just to see the Cat Empire. It turned out they were staying at the same hostel so after a few drinks we headed back.

The next day I moved hostels and started exploring the city. Starting again at the Reeperbahn I walked along the river at Landungsbrücken then over to the Hafencity which is a new urban development around the waterfront of the old harbour of Hamburg.

As I was walking around taking photos my camera started to act up. It kept getting worse, so I cut my exploring short to find a Canon repairer to have a look. Turns out the aperture assembly in the lens had started to fail. When I asked how long it would take to fix I was given the standard response of ’7 days’ which I obviously didn’t have. I explained my situation and was told 3 days for the repair and realignment – which was the day I was due to leave.

Turns out I didn’t have to wait that long. The next morning while exploring Hamburg on a free walking tour I missed a call from the repair shop saying my lens was all fixed and ready – talk about German efficiency. 250 Euros later I had my lens back – and a new insight into the city of Hamburg thanks to the tour I had taken that morning.

The tour guides also ran a pub/bar crawl in the Reeperbahn in the evenings, so I went along with a few people I had met on the tour, met a few more (including the Brisbane tour guide) and had a good night out.

On the Thursday I decided to go check out the Miniatur Wunderland – a huge warehouse with the most epic model train set up I have ever seen! There is no way to describe how big and how detailed this place was. Each room was a model of a different city or country with Hamburg, Austria, Switzerland, Scandinavia and Nevada USA all on display. The railways are connected between the rooms and 2 floors – making it the largest model railway in the world. With computer controlled lights to simulate day, dusk, night and sunrise; trains, cars and boats driving around and all sorts of hidden extras it takes a few hours to explore. They are even in the process of creating a model airport where the planes take off.

After nerding myself out at the model railway I took advantage of my daily rail pass and jumped on the passenger ferries that run up and down the River Elbe. It wasn’t the best weather that day, but it was nice to see the city from a different perspective. Down by the waterfront I also managed to find an actual Hamburg hamburger. Was pretty simple – but something I had to do while I was there.

On my last night I found a cool little bohemian cafe district in the city. Had dinner in what must be the most popular and best tasting kumpir (baked potato) place I have even seen. I wanted to explore some more but all the interesting stuff was beginning to close up.

That was pretty much my Hamburg experience. There was still heaps of stuff I didn’t get the chance to see and I really wanted to explore the city more. Hamburg definitely spoke to me (“Come live here!”) while I was there and I will have to go back!

This post is tagged Germany, Hamburg