Today was our fourth and final USAC Orientation session: a tour of Hamburg! We all met at the Lüneburg train station to take the Metronom to the central station in Hamburg. Leuphana students also get free train travel throughout the entire state of Lower Saxony, to Bremen, to Lübeck, and to Hamburg. Our train was late (a rare occurrence in Germany), which complicated our already tight schedule right from the beginning. The train ride to Hamburg takes around half an hour, and stops twice along the way.
It took quite a bit to fit our entire group of forty-some students on the same bus, but we all made it to the Hamburg History Museum just in time for our tours, one in English and one auf Deutsch. I could have spent much longer at the museum after the tour. The building, erected in 1920, was built specifically to be a museum (rare in Germany and all of Europe), and incorporates historical styles and artifacts into its construction. Hamburg's history is filled with destruction, demolition, and rebuilding. In their attempt to modernize and become a world-leading city, Hamburg's citizens repeatedly tore down old buildings and districts to build new ones, especially as the harbor grew and changed with the shipping industry. The Great Fire of 1842 also destroyed a large part of the city, and resulted in more new construction. Allied bombing during World War II devastated almost half of the city yet again. The museum uses pieces of buildings and scale models of Hamburg to illustrate life in the city throughout the centuries.
Both these photos show the historical pieces
integrated into the more-modern museum's design.
Detail of scale model
After we left the museum we walked through the St. Pauli district on the way to the harbor. St. Pauli is the "rough side" of town (red light district, lower-income, etc.). To give you an idea, their soccer team's emblem is a skull and crossbones. When we got to the harbor, we took a tour on one of the boats that are part of Hamburg's public transportation system (along with the buses and subways). We got to see both the lovely shoreline homes and the industrial shipyards. The boat made stops just like a bus would, and we rode with our daily passes.
We then walked along the harbor and through the city to Mahnmal St. Nikolai, a former cathedral damaged in WWII, now a monument to tortured and abused prisoners. The sanctuary of the cathedral was almost completely gone (only fragments of the exterior walls remain), but the steeple still stands. The steeple has been equipped with a beautiful carillon, and an elevator to an observation platform 76 m / 250 ft. high. From up in the spire, you can see almost all of Hamburg. In the former cathedral's basement is now a museum documenting St. Nikolai's history along with the history of concentration and torture camps. The steeple, once the tallest in Europe, later a landmark for Allied bombers, now stands in memory of those caught in the destruction of the Second World War.
A view from the steeple of the remains of the sanctuary walls.
Our last stop on our tour was Hamburg's Rathous (City Hall, pictured above as seen from St. Nikolai). The Rathaus has more rooms than Buckingham Palace, and was built on a former swamp (and thus required special foundations). From there, we walked back to the train station along one of Hamburg's main shopping streets, and then took the train back to Lüneburg.
The main entrance to Hamburg's Hauptbahnhof (main train station).
Our train back to Lüneburg.
After we returned to Lüneburg, USAC treated us to dinner at a cafe. I ordered flammkuchen (German very-thin crust pizza), which was delicious. I also helped some friends finish their spaghetti. Overall, it was a great way to spend a day. I'm glad the USAC directors were there to guide us for the first time, but I would feel comfortable returning for more personal exploration. That will have to wait a while, though. I need to get some sleep tonight, so I can do lots of homework tomorrow!
P.S. - If you would like to know more about any part of my tour than I told you in this brief summary, just let me know!
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