Hamburg – Sun 19th Nov

Today I’d booked two tours with Experience Hamburg Tours. We started a 6:30am for the Sankt Pauli Fishmarket Tour. We walked down the banks of the river learning about Hamburg’s Maritime history stopping at various sights along the way until we got to the fish market. This runs from 7am-11am over the winter months. The wholesale market has now moved so this is now just retail sales. There is a variety of food available including fish rolls. I could not stomach that this early in the morning but we had a Franzbrötchen, a type of pastry, a bit like a failed croissant with cinnamon sugar. There are also the screamers who put on quite a show enticing the people passing to grab a plastic bag and fill it with their wares. These will be what has come into the port but can’t be sold to the main supermarkets (they might be close to use by etc). After the tour we warmed up in a cafe for breakfast and wandered some more.

After breakfast we went on a Harbour cruise. I stayed inside, so no great photos. It was a bit cold and windy … and then rainy. Afterwards E wanted to see the Soviet U-boat museum so we went to that. I can’t believe how tight the quarters are. The beds are too short for me to sleep comfortably and I’m not very tall.

After all this we only had a short time back in apartment, resting up before our late afternoon tour around the old town and warehouse district. We started near the town hall and learnt more about Hamburgs history as we walked through the town. we finished in the Speicherstadt, the UNESCO world heritage listed warehouse district.

Our tour guide gave us some recommendations for dinner and we ended up in a whisky bar, Whiskyplaza & Altstadt Restaurant am Fleet. I had some yummy mulled wine and an excellent fish dish.