Hamburg Ho. Review on Hamburg

Hamburg is known for two things. The first is the inland port which exists and the second is Repperbahn- the red light district in this city. My stress through this review would be on these two.

I spent two months in Hamburg from 2003 Jul-2003 Sept. It was a preety hot season but I guess in germany thats welcome. I was participating in a summer student program at the synchrotron facility called ''Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron'' (DESY) (German Electron Synchrotron). This involved some courses and practical research work. But the evenings were normally always free and guess what.. we made full use of it.

I had some very cool company during the whole stay. We were a group of international students from all around europe and I was the only indian. But there were some people from thailand, some from poland, but mainly guys from germany. Germany in general is famous for Bier but since I do not drink, so I am really not the best person to suggest on this. But friends of mine who do drink find the Bier cool. So incase you visit germany, you should surely try some Bier. Well for a change I have tried a lot of alchohol free Biers. But thats another thing.

Europe wide whats specially famous for Hamburg is its nightlife. I guess if there is any city which can beat it in this then it could be either amsterdam or Las vegas or both. Well so the first night when we were free, we had a barbeque at the beach. Its really cool, because you see scores of other people having grill evenings. Hamburg has a unique blend of international people and thats one more reason which makes it attractive. After some more days it was the weekend. What a better way to spend a weekend-evening than to go to a disco. I should confess that I had never been to a disco before this one instance.

So we went to Reeperbahn- one of the world famous red light areas of the world. No we did not go for prostitutes. Reeperbahn is something like you see very rarely in life. There are innumerable food joints like Burger King, mcDonalds n all.. It is lined by discos. Some discos are popular for reasons like famous groups (Beatels, Eagels,etc) performed there. Others are just popular because they are in Reeperbahn. Then there are scores of prostitutes along the streets. But they are quite professional, I shoudl say. I didn't try to check any of them out though. This place is bubbling with life. You will see scores and scores of young people. Its amazing. Even at 3-4 AM its so crowded that you would hardly believe that its actually nite.

We went to a disco that night. You hear cool mix of hip-hop, rock and metal and can dance yourself out till the morning. I did. But the one thing I did not like about this disco and all others were the Bouncers. They are really not small and can get nasty as I saw with one of my friends. The cool thing about all the discos in this area is that they have popular DJs playing songs. You can perhaps bump into some well known personality. It seems that wen Britney Spears came to hamburg she went to one of these discos. The Bouncer asked her to buy the ticket and she said she was Britney Spears. Ofcourse the bouncer thought she was joking and showed her the way out. Guess what. The next day he was fired.

Besides the discos, I guess the lighting is awesome in this area. Also, its hard to believe the number of taxis you see lined along the roads. And besides you also see some of the flashiest cars in germany in this region. However this area closes at around 6 in the morning and one has fortunately time to get ready for the next night. If you are in Hamburg, then this is one place you should most certainly visit. I should say people should not take the above suggestion in the wrong perspective. Places like Las Vegas and Amsterdam are not complete without their red light areas.

In the same way hamburg is not complete without its own. Specially when its among the worlds three most popular ones. I remmember this funny instance of us coming back from reeperbahn one morning. It was me, a mexican guy, an english guy and a spanish guy. Now this spanish guy (Issak) was so badly drunk that he had totally lost his sense of direction. So here we were, at this bus stop waiting for our bus.

Since Issak is a chain smoker and since he didnt have any cigaretts left, so he just walked up to an old lady and asked if she had a cigerrate. Well it turned out that she did. Our man was so happy that he invited her over to his room. This poor lady was so scared that instead of waiting for the bus she started waking right away. I remmember how hard the rest of us tried to hide oursleves, just to pretend that we were not with this guy.

On some instances we travlled by ship in the inland port. One has to pay the same amount for travelling by bus/train/ship in this city and this is what makes it even more awesome. Besides the above, Hamburg is specially suited because of its kind of near location to some of the most beautiful places in germany like Luebeck, Cologn, Berlin, Kiel, Cuxhafen, Bremen. Cuxhafen, a region very close to hamburg has very beutiful beaches. I guess one can also see part of Denmark from this beach, but I am not very sure. Bremen on the other hand is famous because of the lot of fairy tales that were composed here. Remmember the Pide Piper... thats Bremen.

Transport in Hamburg is expensive. I would suggest that incase you do not know anyone in this city then you should visit it via a packaged tour, which would perhaps come out to be cheaper. Otherwise, the food in this city is affordable. On a normal day, including your lodging costs, I would say that you might end up spending something around 40-50 Euros (2000-3000 Rs). However if you are in some other part of Europe and want to visit this city just for a day then this cost would be much lesser. But otherwise, this is one city you would surely like for a short and sweet visit. Watch your wallet though. It also has some smalltime thugs around.