The NY Times On-line travel article focuses on Hamburg, Germany this week. Way too much in the article is made of the red light district, and way to little of the historic architecture, artistic neighborhoods, and hordes of museums in the city, which was my home for 9 years.
One of these days I will get back to Hamburg to do a full photo exposé of what is without question Germany's most beautiful city on the mouth of the Elbe River, if only to convince people that Munich, like Florence and Rome, is not the only place to see in a large and diverse country.
You know I must be the only American who has been to Germany 4 times and has not been to Munich!
I cannot agree with you more about Hamburg. I spent a two week home exchange there once and it was wonderful. I never went to the infamous redlight district. I saw the musical "Buddy", which was then playing on that theater on the island. I found my minimal German to be no bar to enjoying the musical because the plot was very simplistic and the songs were in English! I took a boat on the lake, and went to Wedel to see the boats come down the Elbe and get welcomed (or bid farewell) in their native languages. Even though it is all done by computer these days it was fun. Then I went on a day trip to Lubeck and saw a wonderful puppetry museum. I also have friends who live in Wilhelmshaven and visited them.
Germany is definitely more than Munich. I have also exchanged in the Black Forest, Berlin and in a tiny town in Bavaria called Scheidigg. The later was the venue for my home exchange from hell where I broke my ankle, had a dirty house and a car that was basically a wreck and did not run. I never got to Munich.
Last summer I did a home exchange in Vienna and covered a lot of Austria but deliberately did not do Salzburg or Munich. I figured that I would get an exchange deal there one day. Little did I know that I would be exchanging in Salzburg in March of 2008, but I am. I will finally get to Munich as a side trip from Salzburg instead of the other way round.
My favorite place in Germany so far is Berlin, but it is clear that Hamburg does not get the amount of American tourists that it should. It is a very interesting place and has some nice museums and an interesting port area as well. Also, that exchange was where I picked up the most unusual souvenir ever--a ship model of the ship Vaderland. It was on that boat 100 years ago this past August that my grandmother and great grandmother came to the US in steerage. The ship left from Antwerp though, not Hamburg.
Posts: 282 | Location: McLean, VA | Registered: 14 August 2006
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