Wandering Around Germany: Hamburg

Recently, a post on X asked whether or not Hamburg lives up to its reputation. It raised quite a debate! Whether or not Germany’s “Gateway to the world” lives up to the hype, we had a LOT of fun!

Our time there was filled with spontaneity, and we ended up staying longer than we planned. It did mean sacrificing time in Berlin, but it was worth it! (And as for Berlin, I have every intention of returning to the Hauptstadt anyway!)

More than likely, if you are of German ancestry, your ancestors left their “Fatherland” from this port city (alright, it might have been Bremerhaven, but Hamburg is the primary port city in Germany, hence the slogan “Gateway to the world”).

We arrived after a seven hour drive from Herrnhut, on the border with Czechia and Poland. We were guests of a church in Hamburg, and were able to stay at the church building itself, which was equipped with a full bath and kitchen. After meeting some of the folks, one of our hosts took us out for ice cream. Then we pretty much settled in and went to bed!

The next morning, Saturday, we decided to visit the local farmers market.

We met with another contact that afternoon who shared her experience of moving to and working in Germany (don’t read too much into that, folks. A move to Germany is not something we’re currently discussing–but I loved hearing her story!)

She also shared with us that the Heide was in bloom, and that we would be doing ourselves a huge favor if we took the hour-or-so drive southeast to go see it. That was a tough call, but we stayed in Hamburg and put the Heide on our bucket list. I did pull this picture off of Shutterstock so you all can see what a glorious sight it is and why it’s worth seeing someday:

We headed to the waterfront instead, parked our rental car (a VW, natürlich) and crossed the Wilhelminenbrücke, a bridge with an Oriental rug design made out of stones (Steinerner Orientteppich). It honors Hamburg as a historic center of trade for Europe. Also note the iconic locks that couples leave on bridges to testify of their undying love.

My husband is hard of hearing and I knew that Hamburg had a fairly large deaf population, but I was still surprised to see people using sign language. Hamburg University is home to the IDGS, The Institute of German Sign Language and Communication of the Deaf. An interesting similarity to our own metropolitan area, which is home to an institute for the Deaf as well. It is not uncommon to see people signing around town.

Fun Fact: Sign Language is not universal! Every nation has their own. I know very little about German Sign Language except that the alphabet is similar to American Sign Language, with added hand motions for the ä, ö, ü, ß and “sch” sound.

The Wilhelmine Bridge led us to the famous Elbphilharmonie, which is impressive to behold but not particularly attractive to me because of its modern appearance. (Call me old fashioned!) Add to that the fact that I was developing a migraine and was only pressing forward to allow my husband an amazing opportunity to take photos. While he was happily shooting away, I forced myself to enjoy a slow walk around the observation deck with many pauses to rest. During that time, I decided that from that perspective, the Elphi wasn’t so bad. Most of the shots below are from my cell phone, although a few might be credited to him.

There happened to be a waterfront festival going on as well, so after our walk around the Plaza we took in some music and Indian food. My headache went away almost instantly when I sat down and put something in my stomach. Go figure.

We’d been on the go for almost three full weeks at this point and also needed to get up for church in the morning. I was very excited about the opportunity to lead worship for the congregation, one of the extra and unexpected blessings that came our way during the trip. So with a few last snapshots, we headed back and spent a quiet evening at the church.

The next morning we enjoyed a church service, baptism, and picnic at a local park. I love singing auf Deutsch and the congregants tolerated my pronunciation missteps very graciously!

Later that evening we took a nice walk through the Stadtpark (city park). To start things off, we happened upon a real live dumpster fire:

All joking aside, it is a beautiful city park. There is a little lake where you can rent boats, and a huge open field where people picnic, relax, play games and get exercise.

There was even a little Salsa dance party going on in the park. I really wished that we could have joined in, but we only took one semester of ballroom dancing lessons together twenty years ago, and hardly got to Salsa.

To end our stay in Hamburg, we had a scaled-down German-style breakfast on the patio outside the church and then had a nice conversation with the pastor before leaving for Berlin.

I love that Germany has not just been a one-time vacation spot for us. I love that we have taken the time to get to know people. Because it is my ancestral homeland, that’s important to me, especially since I don’t have connections to any living relatives there now. The more connections I can build, the better. The more I can get to know the cares and concerns of the people there, the better. While there are a number of places I would like to see in the world, spending time in Germany is far more important to me. I pray that we will be back in the next year or so. As I said, I want to return to Berlin… and the Heide is still on my bucket list!