Anyone been to Hamburg?

[ifonly4]

If you've been to Hamburg, can you give me your honest opinion as to what you thought please.

We're hoping to go out to Germany as DD at uni there. She says the town she's in is much nicer than Hamburg, but obviously they'll be more to do in Hamburg with better travel connections.

I liked it. A bit like Liverpool.

I loved there for about a year, albeit 25 years ago. I loved it. Great shopping, nightlife, restaurants etc and lots of green spaces with parks, the river and the lakes. Last time I was there was 15 years ago so undoubtedly it will have changed but in my opinion it’s fantastic.

I went to Hamburg in 2018 and I loved it. It was very clean and I found the people to be friendly, like the PP said - it is a bit like Liverpool. Minatur Wunderland (pardon my spelling) is good to visit as well as the concert hall. It has some wonderful museums too. Have fun! I preferred it over Berlin

DH and I have been and we also loved it. Really clean, nice people, we had some lovely food.

It’s better looking than Berlin, for sure, but my heart belongs to Berlin.

I really liked Luneburg, which is about an hour from Hamburg and is a beautiful medieval guild town.

I love Hamburg but I am biased because a) I am German and b) DH is from Hamburg.

It depends what you want, it's a huge city which caters for a lot of different things.

Where is your DD? There are lovely towns around Hamburg, Lüneburg, Lübeck, Travemünde (sea side, lovely in Summer), the Schleswig-Holstein lakes (around 1 hour drive north).

If you just want a city break, Hamburg is great, you can visit lots of cities outside by train for a day. If you have more time there is tons to do in the area.

Thanks for your replies. DD is actually In Luneberg which she prefers to Hamburg and thinks we'll feel the same. We're going partly to see her and also for a break somewhere different, so I guess we need to think about what else we'd want to do and if we can get there easily from Luneberg.

Lüneburg is a really nice and lovely town but not something I would stay for days. You could defintely use it as a base and travel into Hamburg. for a day trip or even two, the train ride is fairly short.

I lived in Hamburg for a while. It’s great. Take a boat trip round the harbour, visit some of the big museum ships. Go to the fish market early in the morning. Take another boat trip on the Alster and the canals. Wander around the town centre. Planten un Blomen is a lovely park. And a night out on the Reeperbahn and surrounding area is great fun.

Having said all that I would wait until the weather is warmer (if you can wait). And yes Lüneburg is really pretty. Definitely take a trip to the seaside too while you’re there.

Hamburg is generally nice but there is a very seedy area, quite a lot of street homelessness and open street prostitution. Those are not things you see in many other parts of Germany.

A friend of mine did back in the 1980s.

He refused to talk about it.

@UntilYourNextHairBrainedScheme

Hamburg is generally nice but there is a very seedy area, quite a lot of street homelessness and open street prostitution. Those are not things you see in many other parts of Germany.

I find them not more seedy than any other one in any big city, be it Berlin or Amsterdam or London.

I actually felt safer in Hamburg St. Pauli/Reeperbahn area late evenings than I was at the Frankfurt main station where you have more drug addicts and crime during the day.

Agree, Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof area is worse.

reluctantbrit I've only been to Frankfurt once decades ago for work and remember it as clean but soulless, so I can't compare those cities really.
I live near Munich and Hamburg was a shock in comparison - lively but seedy and exploitative in places especially around the ridiculous Reeperbahn was my impression! The prostitution is horrible to see - there are some very young girls on the street, and the younger women in the group I was with felt uncomfortable around the Reeperbahn area and stuck with us oldies. Interestingly some of the men in our group (I was there for two separate weeks as part of a course) were also uncomfortable and stayed with us all the time too.

Its mostly not got the gritty feeling of Berlin but it definitely has an underbelly of poverty and sleaze as well as vibrant and wealthy areas and lots to see and do in other areas.

The seedy area is very easily avoided. We went on a Sunday morning, just to say we'd 'seen' it, but obviously there was nobody out partying/looking for lurve at that time!

Homelessness I didn't think was any more of a problem than Manchester/Birmingham etc.

@UntilYourNextHairBrainedScheme It is a long while since I have been. to Munich but Bavaria is also a very different part of Germany to Hamburg. But if you just google Red Light District in Munich and you also get a description where to find it.

St Pauli/Reeperbahn have their reputation since decades and it is well known where it is. Because of that it is more open than most seedy areas in big cities.

It really isn’t that seedy or wasn’t when I lived there - which to be fair was nearly 20 years ago. People just went out and had fun in St Pauli, I even took my mum to the Reeperbahn one night! We sat in a bar and sang along to Hans Albers songs. It’s special because sex workers, their customers and everyone else just mixes and so the atmosphere is very relaxed. The red light district in my tiny home town is only a short road and is honestly worse!

Anyway I guess we’re going off topic here