27 May 2018, Sunday
It’s Day 27, time to move on to another city! After checking out of Kangaroo-Stop hostel bright and early at 6:05am, I walked to Bahnhof Dresden-Neustadt and bought a single-trip ticket (€2.30 / S$3.74) for the S-Bahn ride to Dresden Hbf. I arrived way in advance, as usual, so I got myself a cup of hot coffee (€1.90 / S$3.09) to go along with my pastries for breakfast. My RE50 train would depart Dresden at 7:14am and take me to Leipzig, where I would have to change a train for the next leg to Hamburg. The entire journey would take around five hours, and I paid €29.90 (S$49.82) for a second-class seat.
Like most European trains, the RE50 was clean and comfortable. I had specially reserved a seat with a table so that I could write in my little journal that I carry with me whenever I travel. I really enjoy taking trains in Europe because they are fast, clean and convenient, and they bring me right to the heart of the city. The scenery along the way is also great and I can just stare out of the window while listening to my favourite music. It’s also a good time for penning down my thoughts in my journal, much of which eventually forms the basis of these (super) delayed blog posts.
I arrived Leipzig at 8:50am, exactly right on schedule. The ICE 1514 train to Hamburg wasn’t as punctual though, departing Leipzig only at 9:24am, nine minutes behind schedule. Along the way, the train made a stop at Berlin and I finally arrived Hamburg Hbf at 12:21pm. For this trip, I chose not to stop over at Berlin as I had visited once before, in December 2015.
From Hamburg Hbf, I walked less than five minutes and arrived at Generator hostel, which was literally just across the railway station. I chose it because of its great location. However, I arrived too early for check-in, which was officially at 2pm. The staff said that I could not check in earlier, and that I could deposit my backpack in the locker if I wanted to. The large locker cost €1.50 for one hour usage and €6 (S$9.75) for 24 hours. As it was only 12:30pm, which was neither here nor there, it didn’t make sense for me to rent the locker so I decided to wait it out.
This is why I don’t quite like to stay at these large, established hostels. Yes, they have modern facilities and are run like clockwork but they are also very strict about such rules and fees. At the smaller, independent hostels, the staff are friendlier and they are often more flexible, in terms of offering early check-in or allowing you to store your bags without a fee. The human touch is much more evident in the smaller hostels.
Generator Hamburg hostel
Address: Steinorplatz 3, 20099 Hamburg
Price: €15.72 Euros (S$26.32) for one night, in a 6-bed dorm room
Website: https://generatorhostels.com/destinations/hamburg
Anyway, I utilised the 1.5 hours to do some research on where to go and what to do in Hamburg. I found out that the top attraction in Hamburg is Miniatur Wunderland (click here). It is the world’s largest model railway exhibition with 15.4km of railway tracks, 1,040 trains and 260,000 figurines, recreating a miniature wonderland of the different worlds and cities. It sounded super exciting so I decided to book a ticket.
One pro tip I discovered was that I could get a discount on the admission fee if I entered in the evening, after the peak period. The discount increased as it approached closing time, which was 9pm. I reserved a ticket for entrance between 6:30pm and 7:30pm, and I got a 20% discount. A standard adult ticket cost €15 so I paid only €12 (S$19.50). I could have gone for a 30% discount if I reserved the admission ticket between 7pm and 8pm, but I figured that I didn’t want to rush my visit, and 2.5 hours felt just about right.
At 2pm, I got my keys and went up to my 6-bed male dorm room. As expected, it was spotlessly clean. There was a pull-out metal locker storage box under the bed where I could store my belongings, which was pretty neat. There was also an attached bathroom and shower, which was convenient. However, the cubicles were so tiny they were worse than those on airplanes. I tried to take a shower but the water was so scalding hot and there was no way to make it cooler, so I gave up after five minutes and went to the toilet in the common corridor area, which was much better.
At about 2:20pm, I left the hostel, ready to explore Hamburg. However, I found the streets eerily quiet because it was a Sunday. At the main shopping street of Mönckebergstraße, all the shops including the likes of Zara were shuttered. Maybe it was a good thing, because closed shops meant less money spent!
I soon encountered Hauptkirche Sankt Petri (aka St. Peter’s Church) and popped in for a look. Its interiors were relatively simple but I liked its brick façade, and its 132m-tall tower was very impressive.
Moving along, I reached the Rathaus (Town Hall). The overall shape of the building reminded me of the Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall) in Munich but this one here had green copper roofs and a cleaner look with less Gothic embellishments. This current Rathaus building was rebuilt in the late 19th century after the great fire of 1842 destroyed the original one. It is the seat of the Senate and Parliament of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. The ground floor of the building is open to visitors so I went in for a look.
The interior was pretty grand, with beautiful columns and arched ceiling forming a perfect symmetry. In the courtyard was a fountain with a statue of Hygieia, the goddess of health and hygiene. Hygieia, together with the surrounding statues, represent the power and pureness of the water. The fountain was built in remembrance of the cholera epidemic in 1892. Times were tough in the past, with fires and epidemics causing great loss of lives and property.
As I didn’t have any agenda, I kept walking until I reached Hauptkirche St. Michaelis (aka St. Michael’s Church). It was a beautiful church, with sparkling, white walls and flourishes of gold. It wasn’t overly fancy or elaborate. An organist was playing when I visited. The sounds of the organ reverberated around the hall and sent shivers down my spine.
I kept walking until I reached Beatles-Platz (aka Beatles Square) at the intersection of Große Freiheit and Reeperbahn. After learning about a Beatles monument here in Hamburg, I was eager to see what the monument to the world’s greatest band looked like. However, when I first arrived, I thought I was at the wrong place because I could not see anything resembling a Beatles monument anywhere. It also didn’t feel like the right place because the surrounding area was quite seedy and there were lots of sex shops and drunkards around. I circled the area several times just to be sure.
Finally, I spotted it. I was expecting something grand and dignified, but all that stood were steel silhouette outlines of the band and their instruments. It was no wonder I missed it as the statues were see-through and they just blended into the street behind. It wasn’t what I was expecting at all. I was quite disappointed and I felt it didn’t do The Beatles justice. Sure, they tried to replicate an oversized record by paving the stones on the ground in a circular manner to resemble a vinyl record, but I felt that more effort could have been made.
I later learned that the reason why this square (or rather, circle) is named after The Beatles is because before they made it big in England, the boys had their teeth cut out at the clubs here at Große Freiheit in Hamburg, from 1960 to 1962. Due to their important ties with Hamburg, members of the public and the City of Hamburg raised funds to build this monument and it was completed in 2008.
Back in 1960, the line-up of The Beatles consisted of five members: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, bassist Stuart Sutcliffe and drummer Pete Best. Sutcliffe left the band in July 1961 to pursue a career in painting and unfortunately died from a brain haemorrhage in April 1962, at the tender age of 21. McCartney then took over playing bass. Best was dismissed from the band in August 1962 and was replaced by Ringo Starr.
The Hamburg years saw the band playing at small clubs like Indra and Kaiserkeller, located here in the infamous St. Pauli area, which was home to prostitutes, transvestites and gangsters. This was where they honed their performance skills and built up their songwriting craft. They recorded a single called “My Bonnie” in Hamburg and it caught the eye and ears of manager Brian Epstein, who persuaded EMI record producer George Martin to sign them on. The rest is history.
After the underwhelming visit to Beatles-Platz, I left Reeperbahn quickly because it was like a ghetto area and I felt a little unsafe, even in the day. Thankfully, many of the shops were not open because it was Sunday, otherwise it might have been even more crowded and seedy. I had a “cheap” lunch at a kebab joint, which cost me €7.50 (S$12.20), and it was nowhere as good as the gyros I had in Greece!
I then made my way to the harbour area before heading over to Miniatur Wunderland. The harbour is a bustling place because Hamburg is a major port city located in the northern part of Germany. In fact, it is Europe’s third largest port, after Rotterdam and Antwerp. Hamburg is also the second largest city in Germany after Berlin, and even larger than Munich, which is a surprise to me.
Miniatur Wunderland is located at the historic Speicherstadt warehouse district in the port area. The red brick warehouses were built in 1883 and Speicherstadt was the largest and most advanced logistics centre of its time. It was awarded UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 2015, becoming Hamburg’s first inscription on the list.
I arrived perfectly in time for my scheduled 6:30pm timeslot and went up to the entrance on the second floor. After getting my physical ticket, I passed through a restaurant that was styled like a commercial airplane, complete with airplane seats and “window views”. The miniature worlds were on the third and fourth floors. I went up to the fourth floor first, because that was where most of the exhibits were at.
At the time of my visit, Miniatur Wunderland comprised of nine Theme Worlds – Central Germany, Knuffingen, Austria, Hamburg, USA, Scandinavia, Switzerland, Knuffingen Airport and Italy + the recently completed Venice. Since its opening in 2001, Miniatur Wunderland has been constantly adding new worlds and it is still expanding. Upcoming worlds include Monaco, England, South America and even an Asia world by 2026. Hope they include Singapore!
According to the pamphlet, Miniatur Wunderland is largely based on imagination, and the different sections reflect its development over the years. The earliest sections of Knuffingen, Austria and Central Germany comprised mainly of fantasy buildings that were inspired by various parts of existing buildings. As time went by, the creators got even better at their craft and they became even more detailed with every new world they introduced. For example, in the Italy world, almost every single one of the 500 houses was handmade and painstakingly modelled after an existing building.
The attention to detail was immediately apparent the moment I laid my eyes on the world of Hamburg. My first reaction was “WOW”. There is no other way to describe it. Just jaw-droppingly impressive wow.
One of the first exhibits I saw was the Volksparkstadion, a football stadium with 12,500 mini human figurines, complete with artificial pitch and floodlights. Construction of this model took more than 2,000 hours. When I took a photo of the stadium, it looked just like the real thing from my mobile phone screen. If I just showed you the photo, you would never tell that it was a 1:150 scale model.
By the way, you can go close to the models but you should not touch them. Photography and videography are not only free of charge but explicitly encouraged, so feel free to snap as many photos as you like!
The Elbphilharmonie concert hall model was also crazily impressive. It was one of the over 200 models with push button actions. After pushing the button, the concert hall will open up to reveal its interior, showcasing an orchestra performing in front of a full house audience. The most amazing thing is, the little “musicians” actually move in sync with the music!
Every 15 minutes, the worlds will change from day to night, so as the lights dim, the buildings come alive and you get to see the world in a whole new light, literally. Some of the worlds look better at “night”, such as the Las Vegas section of USA world. It is incredible how much electrical work goes into putting up the lights. Over 385,000 LED lights were used.
The other fascinating thing about Miniatur Wunderland is the moving trains. With 1,040 locomotives running across 15,400m of tracks, just watching the constant movement of the trains is enough to keep you occupied for several hours. In fact, it is not just the trains that move. There are also ships that sail across water, moving cars, and even “flying” aircrafts. It was mind-blowing to see how all the vehicles move independently, seemingly by magic.
One of the most impressive worlds was the Knuffingen Airport one. It had planes taxiing on the runway before “taking off” into the sky, and even an arrival/departure board that was updated in real time.
My favourite world was the Italy and Venice one. Maybe it was because I’ve been to those places featured, so to see the famous buildings in miniature form was even more amazing as I could compare them to the real thing.
After a while, I started to notice how the creators subtly incorporated humour into the models. Like how a lamp post sticks through the middle of a car, which is an impossible situation. And how some people are participating in an absurd trolley race down the ramp of a multi-storey carpark.
There are also some cheeky moments too, like how a couple of monks are sneaking behind the bushes to peek up the skirt of a lady who was bending over the boot of her car. I think the creators put these in as a little inside joke, to see whether visitors would notice them or not. I certainly did and I spent the rest of the night trying to unearth these hidden Easter eggs.
In all, I spent two hours at Miniatur Wunderland. Kids will definitely love it because of all the moving trains and lights. However, adults will also have a good time because we can really appreciate the amount of work and craftsmanship that went into the making of these incredibly lifelike worlds. If you ever visit Hamburg, you MUST definitely make a trip to Miniatur Wunderland. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
After leaving Miniatur Wunderland, I walked over to the nearby Elbphilharmonie (click here), not long after seeing its miniature version. The real building was even more impressive as its unique form was unlike any I had ever seen before.
Essentially made up of two parts, the bottom half is composed of a brown brick building originally built in 1875 called the Kaiserspeicher, which used to be Hamburg’s biggest warehouse on the water. Destroyed during World War II, it was rebuilt in 1966 and renamed Kaispeicher. It was used as a storage space for cocoa, tobacco and tea until the 1990s, when it became obsolete with the rise of container traffic. It stood empty until 2003, when a Hamburg project developer commissioned architects to design a new concert hall on top of the old Kaispeicher. The completed Elbphilharmonie then opened in November 2016.
The top half is a futuristic glass building made up of over 1,000 curved window panels with seemingly random semi-circles carved into them, resembling a cheese grater. The semi-circles are actually the balconies of the 45 residential apartments in the building. Besides the two concert halls and residential apartments, there is also a 244-room Westin Hamburg hotel located within the glass building. The curved roof resembles the waves in the sea, reflecting Hamburg’s history as a port.
Between the old warehouse and the glass structure is the Plaza, a public viewing area that extends around the whole building. Located 37m above the ground, the Plaza offers a panoramic view of the inner city and harbour.
Admission to the Plaza is free but you need to get an admission ticket onsite from the Ticket Shop on the ground floor. The tickets are timed in blocks of one hour to prevent overcrowding. If you wish to guarantee your admission in a pre-defined timeslot, you may book at least one day in advance online by clicking here, but a booking fee of €2 applies. When I arrived at 8:40pm, there was no queue so I got my ticket from the Ticket Shop easily. Actually, I didn’t even know that the Plaza existed. I just happened to walk by and discovered it by chance, so it was an unexpected bonus.
After scanning my ticket at the main entrance, I stepped onto the 82m-long curved escalator called the Tube to reach the foyer of the Grand and Recital Halls. This is the world’s first curved escalator. I would never have thought that a 2.5-minute escalator ride would be a memorable event but this one was. The white walls and ceiling also made it feel very cool and futuristic.
The Plaza serves as a junction between the old warehouse below and the modern glass structure above. As I stepped onto the Outer Plaza, I had a wonderful view of the harbour. The cranes at the port and the oil and natural gas storage tanks reminded me of home. What Hamburg and Singapore have in common is that they are both port cities.
I stood at the Outer Plaza and admired the stunning view before me. The sun was slowly making its way down towards the horizon at 9pm. Oh, how I love summertime in Europe, when the days are long and the sunsets glorious.
I finally extricated myself from my reverie at 9:15pm and hurriedly made my way back to the hostel. I wanted to get back before it turned dark, as I felt that Hamburg in general didn’t feel as safe as the other European cities I had visited so far.
After walking for what seemed like ages, I finally reached Hamburg Hbf at 10pm and bought myself a vegetarian noodle in a box from Wok Express (€2.90 / S$4.71) for a late dinner. The cheapest food is still Chinese takeout. As outside food was not permitted to be brought in to Generator hostel, I had to finish my noodles while standing outside the building. I felt quite pathetic doing so, and that’s another reason why I don’t really like this hostel. Nevertheless, it had been a good end to the day, with Miniatur Wunderland and Elbphilharmonie making my short Hamburg visit a worthwhile and memorable one.