My trip to Hamburg in November 2023 was for my friend Marty’s bachelor party, I remembered the Reeperbahn and St. Pauli being a lively area from my trip in 2018, so I used my influence within the group to sway the booking towards Hamburg. We stayed in Buch Ein Bett hostel, just a few streets off the main Reeperbahn so we wouldn’t have far to venture back after our nights out.
I wasn’t that impressed by Hamburg after my first stay, but it’s a city I fell in love with on take 2.
Whilst the majority of our trip was spent in an assorted selection of bars, our group did a bit of sightseeing and did try some new, strange experiences (I’ll get to that later)
The group consisted of Marty (the groom), 5 of his school friends (including me) and 4 friends from university that he alternatively studied/lived with.
We arrived in Hamburg rather early in the day, the first thing we did was drop our bags off at our hostel and find a bar serving food. We settled for Zwick, at the East starting point of the Reeperbahn.
After the food, we did a bit of exploring, first was the Alter Elbtunnel connecting North Hamburg, with the more industrial south side docklands. The tunnel was built in 1911 and was a marvel of old architecture and engineering.
The free experience was not only a cool way to kill a few minutes, but it offers a great view of Hamburg docks, the Elbphilharmonie opera house, and St. Pauli.
The far side of the Elbtunnel also was the site of a subcamp from the Neuengamme Concentration Camp, where prisoners were subjected to forced labour in the shipyards.
Towards the end of WWII, surviving prisoners from the Hamburg subcamps were evacuated to Lübeck and placed on boats where the British bombed them, mistaking them for German troops. 7,000 prisoners were mistakenly killed, with hundreds being sent to Lubeck from Hamburg.
On the theme of the concentration camp, I’d like to mention the a recurring theme through the city: which is the vast amount of Stolperstein scattered through the city, from day 1, we were constantly stumbling across them, even at the Airport.
After returning through the tunnel, we walked to the hostel to prepare for night 1 after the tunnel, and to my amusement, I discovered my room was home to a triple bunk bed.
The night led to an interesting pub crawl, dive bars galore surrounded by a red light District, an English pub, and ultimately an Irish pub to round us off.
I won’t bore you with the (hazy) memories, but I do have a newfound love for Astra beer.
The next morning, we opted for one of the most unusual experiences of my life, a nude sauna. I knew the sauna was nude – but the entire spa complex had hot pools, and I (wrongly) assumed you could wear swimtrunks in these. Everything was. Whilst being sat in a pool completely naked (surrounded by friends) was very unusual at the beginning, after a few minutes, it felt quite liberating. And the sauna helped us sweat some of the hangover out. It’s an experience I would do again.
After the sauna, most of the gang returned to the hostel, however I’d read about a flea market (or Flohmarkt in German) not too far away from the sauna, so me and Donal checked out the flea market, and returned to the hostel via the St. Pauli football ground (The Millerntor Stadium).
We had food booked in Gröninger Brewery for 7, and just killed a little time with a pub crawl before leaving in that direction. The brewery experience was cool. We were able to get our own barrel of beer, and watched the staff hammer a tap into it.
We had an assortment of traditional German food throughout the table, and really enjoyed the beer barrel experience.
After this we ventured back to St. Pauli for night 2, we anticipated the messiness to really up the ante. We initially sampled a few disco bars before opting for Clockers cocktail bar, to add a little sophistication to our night before ending it in Molotow, a cool indie/rock club that is fighting for survival as its current location on the Reeperbahn is anticipated to be replaced by a hotel.
The last night of our trip continued until 5am, and whilst we intended on staying up for “breakfast” at the Fischmarkt, we opted for sleep instead.
Our last day in Hamburg was rather reserved. A rushed breakfast, and a walk from St. Pauli to the centre, where I snapped some photography in the Speicherstadt, and had some hair of the dog in funky leaning restaurant, whilst some of the rest of the group explored the Maritime Museum, before we all met up in Paddy’s Irish Bar and ventured back towards the airport.
Whilst I’m not normally a person who would rush back to a city I’ve already visited, I did feel I needed to experience Hamburg properly, and I’m so glad I did. And I hope I get to experience it again one day. Until then, tschüss.
