The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg

On this Wednesday we spend the day in the City which goes by the title of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. But before I report on the day in Hamburg, time to tell the story of our journey to this great city.

From First to Second Class

As part of planning the holiday, the development of the Stockholm to Hamburg night train announced in late 2022 had made the plans easier, by providing an overnight route to our next destination. In August 2022, The Guardian wrote about the resurgence of sleeper travel in Europe based on this route. So, we had decided to treat ourselves by booking this journey as a First Class experience. The Man in Seat 61, shows pictures of the accommodation we had booked. 

On Tuesday morning when I woke up in Stockholm, I received a message from SJ (the Swedish Train company). 

Hi! Your seat numbers on EuroNight train 345 2023-08-22 (YVH6867C) has changed, your car has been exchanged to a different type of car. Your new seats are bunk beds 21 – 26 in couchette car 24. This is a full 2 Class couchette compartment reserved for you. You will automatically be compensated with a 50 % refund of the ticket price within five business days. We apologise for the inconvenience. If you would rather rebook your journey free of charge, or cancel and receive a full refund, please contact your ticket retailer.

Kind regards, SJ

On a positive note, we were still getting a private car for the two of us, but no private toilet or shower!

Leaving Stockholm

We go onto platform 10 at 5:15pm for the train at 5:34pm, when the train arrives at the platform at 5:25pm it is a packed platform. 

We get on board and into our couchette by 5.30 and the train is on the way at 5.34.

While it isn't first class it is perfectly comfortable, though it seems strange to be two people in a sleeping cabin designed for six - I can't imagine what it would be like sleeping with four strangers in the same couchette, so I'm glad I don't have to find out!

Route

The train route is as follows:

The planned timing is as follows

18:34 - Stockholm Central 

20:02 - Norrköping C 

20:27 - Linköping C 

21:25 - Nässjö C 

22:05 - Eleventh 

22:49 - Hässleholm C

23:25 - Lund C 

00:25 - Malmö C 

01:04 - Copenhagen 

02:59 - Odense 

07:01 - Hamburg 

Twelve and a half hours.

Overnight

We make the beds up at 9.15pm, both of us laying our sheets, pillows and duvets on the bottom bunk, rather than attempting to access the other four bunks, this seems to work well and we are both soon asleep. 

We sleep through Malmö, though we had visited the city for a day trip last year. We also sleep through the Øresund Bridge and Copenhagen. 

I wake for a toilet call at 1.15am, the toilets are next but one to our car, so we can see if it is occupied at any time. I see the train come into Odense at 2am and stay until 2.10am. I fall back to sleep sometime before 3am. 

I wake as the train comes to a stop at Padborg at 4.20pm, which is the border town between Denmark and Germany, we have almost come full circle on this trip

At 4.45am the train departs again, Drew wakes at 5am and we both use the facilties and get changed into the new days clothes. We have to use what Drew refers to as, a shower in a tin (antiperspirant spray) as the absence of our first class carriage also means we only have access to a wash basin. Still new clothes makes one feel refreshed. 

I go down to the mini-bistro (a cupboard at the end of the carriage) for our breakfasts. A roll each, cheese, marmalade and fruit drink. The nice strong coffee is very welcome, this is included in the price even though they are discounting 50% of the price due to the absence of said first-class carriage. 

We use the HVV app to buy day tickets for our travel today unlike most of the places we have visited this is a day ticket, rather than a 24 hour one - i.e. it runs out at Midnight. The day tickets are discounted when they bought on the app: €7.71 rather than €8.40. 

We arrive in Hamburg HBF (Central) on time at just after 7am.

We walk to the U-bahn station and catch the U4 to HafenCity.

We arrive at HafenCity

and can see the hotel which is only 50 meters from the station. 

We check in to the hotel (we can access the room from 2pm) and put our luggage in the storage area. Given the light snack on the train we decide to pay for breakfast in the hotel before venturing out to see the city. It is a very generous breakfast. Herring and Liverwurst are lovely breakfast flavours.

Visiting Hamburg

As mentioned at the start of the blog, what sets Hamburg apart from other German cities is that it owes its roots to the Hanseatic league of which Hamburg was a key member. During the 13th to 16th century, Hamburg was considered second only to the port and city of Lübeck in terms of its sea-borne trade, with the development of trade with the Americas, Hamburg overtook all German ports and even today it remains the largest port in Germany and the third largest in Europe.

I'd picked the Holiday Inn, HafenCity of the three IHG hotels in the city due to its proximity to the U-bahn station for ease of arrival this morning and departure tomorrow, what I was to discover was that it was a great location for exploring the up and coming development in the old port area of Hamburg.

HafenCity developed in the 1870s as a new port built between the canals alongside the river, the great warehouses, quays and harbour basins has now been recreated into a modern urban redevelopment. It is now Europe’s largest inner-city urban development area.

We visited many of the sites as outlined in this map of our route:

We visited the very impressive Elbe Philharmonic which is visible throughout the city

We walked up towards St. Michael's Church and Drew mentioned it felt like walking through Cardiff Bay and all that was missing was the Norwegian Church - not to disappoint, the very next sign we saw indicated the Hamburg Norwegian Church

St. Michael's is Hamburg's Lutheran Cathedral and like the Lutheranism of Sweden, the church is rich in decor. The photos are all on Flickr, so wht not have a look at them starting here. 

From St. Michael's, we walk to the Church of St. Nicholas' which is the ruins of a church which was bombed by the British in 1943 and now stands as a memorial to World War II. 

We stop for Coffee and then walk on to St. Peter's Church, a more traditional Lutheran Church in the heart of the City. 

A few streets away we come to the very grand City Hall or Rathuas, this shows evidence of the decades of income which trade brought to this city. 

We then go back on to the U-bahn and travel on the U2 from Ganesmarket to Schlump where we change on to the U3 from Schlump to Landesbrucken and back to the river.

Over recent years I have seen photos by Robin Croft of under river roots in some European cities, like this one in Antwerp, so I was fascinated to see that Hamburg has such a tunnel under the Elbe. It was to good an opportunity, so we walked both ways:

It is a fantastic piece of engineering. 

We catch the 111 bus back to Hafen City and get access to our room at 2pm.

I sleep for an hour to catch up with my low level of sleep last night, then we plan tonight's eating and I load last night's photos to Flickr and write a blog post about Riga. 

Dinner

We leave the hotel at 6pm and catch the U4 to Berliner Tor and transfer to the S-bahn S21 train to Holstenstrasse arriving at 6.45pm in time for our booking at 7pm.

The route doesn't look the most logical, but it is the one with the simplest changes to get us to our restaurant for the evening - Anno 1905.

Drew had spotted Anno 1905 when we were looking for restaurants this evening - after yesterday's burgers he knew I wanted some meat and veg [Co-pilot's note: I tried to point out, dear readers, that he had meat and veg yesterday in his burger and fries - he just wouldn't listen!!!], and this was perfect for that. Anno 1905 offers homemade North German cuisine in the Hamburg tradition with an original oldy worldly restaurant feel. 

Drew began with the Gratinierter Ziegenkäse mit Salatbouquet, that is Goat's cheese au gratin with salad. He said it was lovely to eat the fresh salad and the goat's cheese which is well toasted and has that tart, earthy tang which all good goat's cheese have.

I had Kleine Portion Labskaus, a small portion of Labskaus - this meat, egg and herring dish, seems to be the roots of the American misconception of the Hamburger - they flatten and fry/grill the meat but the rest looks and tastes nothing like Labskaus which is truly delicious, the gherkin and beetroot draw out the richness of the meat - perfect.

For mains Drew opted for Annie's Fish & Chips, crispy pollock fillets baked in batter, served with French fries, homemade tartar sauce and vinaigrette. He was delighted with it.

I had opted for Sauerkraut mit Bratkartoffeln und Bratensoße und zwei Kleine Schweinshaxen, i.e. Sauerkraut with fried potatoes and gravy and two small pork knuckles. Here I am back in Germany and back with the lovely pork knuckle I'd enjoyed first in Cologne almost three weeks ago. The Sauerkraut was sharp, tangy and well peppered, the potatoes lightly sauteed and the pork juicy and rich in fatty goodness.

Just as I had felt obliged to go back to the lovely taste of sauerkraut and pork, so Drew, in his dessert, harked back to a German favourite -  „Omas“ Apfelstrudel warm serviert mit Vanilleeis, i.e. "Grandma's" apple strudel served warm with vanilla ice cream and cream, he was in his oils.

After dinner we caught a bus, the X3 back to the hotel arriving there at 9.30pm. 

Transportation Accounts

You'll note from the above that we used public transport 5 times (the twice we caught two U/S bahns one after another only count as one journey each.) The single ticket in Hamburg is €3.60, so €18 compared to the €7.71 we actually paid - again a great saving.