Amazing Hamburg

Before leaving Hamburg, we wanted to see Speicherstadt – the iconic district of Hamburg. If you’ve been to Hamburg, you will recognize the place on the photo below immediately. It is the most famous view in the city.

The  lovely building in the middle is the Wasserschloss (water castle),  and it sits at the end of Hollandischer Brook. At the time of its construction in the early 1900’s, it was the only building in the whole of the warehouse district that was residential. At that time it was believed that residential houses in such area would increase risk of crime. Today, this  little water castle is a restaurant, open daily and with its own private tea room.

The Speicherstadt is the largest warehouse district in the world where the buildings stand on more than 3.5 million (!) oak poles as foundations. It was built during 1883 – 1927, and is on the UNESCO World Heritage list today. Stretching for about 2 kilometres, the area is connected by canals which lap against the foundations of the large buildings on either side.

The warehouses were in use until just a few years ago. A decade ago the Speicherstadt was handling one third of the world’s carpet trade, as well as goods like cocoa, coffee, tea, spices, electronic goods, and maritime equipment.

Hamburg has more bridges inside its city limits than any other city in the world. The figure has been put somewhere around 2,300 to over 2,500 – more than London, Amsterdam and Venice put together. Some of these bridges and canals are found in the Speicherstadt.

We were astonished by the beauty and uniqueness of this place, and spent long time there taking pictures, wandering around, staring at the buildings and canals, before we continued further.

Rathausmarkt, the main square of Hamburg, and Vagn pointing at a model of the St. Nikolai church that we had visited:

Hamburg has many waterways, and in order to make navigation easier, lots of locks and chambers are build along the rivers and canals of the city. The Rathausschleuse is one of them. It has two chambers, each 35 m long and 7.2 m wide that maintain a constant water level of about 3 meters above normal, allowing for transport of barges, steamers, and pleasure vessels. Water power generators cover the electricity demand of the lock. The operation is semi-automatic with remote control and monitoring.

In the afternoon we got back to the Uetersen/Heist airport. The air traffic controller also flew Rans, and she was very excited about having a vising Rans aircraft from Denmark.

There was quite a big restaurant in the airport, and it was full of people that came there to have a meal or coffee, and enjoy a sunny afternoon. The restaurant had excellent ice-cream, and we had it outside, sitting on the benches facing the airfield.

It was time to leave, and we waved goodbye to Uetersen and our wonderful time in Hamburg:

The air was smooth and we appreciated different views on our way.

We did a round over the German Fehmarn, and then headed home.  Bandholm on the photo below, a small port town on the Northern Lolland in Denmark, known from the Bronze Age. The small island in front of the harbour is called Havneø (harbour island):

It was quite misty, but the visibility was good. We would have stayed in Hamburg for a couple of days more, if I didn’t have to be back to work…

Somewhere over the Karrebæksminde Bay:

Gavnø island and its Castle that we visited last summer:

Landing in Kræmmersten against the low sunset light was a bit challenging in the mist, and Vagn did one of those perfect landings. We finished the day with a generous glass of vin chaud by a fireplace, sharing our experiences from the tour.

We had a great time in Hamburg, and will definitely return.