Hamburg is a city with two sides: a prosperous affable city of well-off citizens typified by Blankenese, its up-market suburb of expensive villas that is a synonym throughout Germany for money in the bank , and a thriving, bustling seaport with all the excitement – and sleazy colour – that conjures up clustered around the Reeperbahn and St. Pauli , bywords for a good time to any sailor in the world. 

Hamburg is among the most visually attractive city of Europe. The old city of Hamburg, the Alt-Stadt, can be seen on foot in a day or using a 2-hour introductory bus tour.

Just a little ahead on the right is the monolithic domed Art Hall (Kunsthalle) which is well worth a visit especially for the 20^th century German works. Then the bus crosses the Lake Alster by the Lombard Bridge, leaving the ultramodern Opera House on the left.

Beyond the botanical Garden and bordering Junginsstrasse is the most famous park in Hamburg, the Planten un Blomen. The masses of tulips in spring are followed by marvelous displays of flowers in the summer. On summer nights, there is a water ballet played out by special fountains and accompanied by coloured lights and music.

Then comes the harbour, which is a paradise for anyone, who loves boat. It is an incredible melange of pleasure boats, oceangoing freighter, coal barges, tugs and fishing boats. Walk down the to the waterfront. On the left are the St. Pauli piers, where local passenger ships and excursion boats tie up. It’s well worth taking one of the tours around the port. A very pleasant 50-minuts Alster cruise affords a lovely view of the city’s towers and spires. Near the St. Pauli piers you can see the dome above the old Elbe tunnel, an old landmark of the city.

While returning from the harbour area you will see St. Michel Cathedral, a fine baroque church built in 1762. It is best loved of all church steeples that make Hamburg’s silhouette unmistakable. It has been adopted by Hamburgers as their official symbol. You can take the elevator up to its greenish cupola for a view out over the town.

Continue east and you run into a fascinating section of narrow canals called the Fleete. This is a place to wander around, trying to whatever sidetracks takes your fancy. The canal side walks also offer attractive views of the old town , including the Rathous (townhall). If you have time to visit only one building in Hamburg, it should be the Rathaus. It has a fine festival hall, vaulted ceiling and marvelously elaborate exterior.

One of the best things about Hamburg is its restaurants. Everything is available from haute cuisine from around the world to pickled rollmops, in settings that vary from high class restaurants to the beer and herring atmosphere of the waterfront snack bars. In between it also has many excellent Turkish restaurants and a few Indian ones.

One of Hamburg’s greatest attractions is the Fish Market which is held every Sunday Morning midway between the St. Pauli Landing Stage and the Altona balcony. This wonderfully joyous , colourful market, which is suitable for the entire family and which , today, has little to do with fish still begins , as any good fish market should, very early. During the summer, it is already mobbed by 6:00 am – it gets going about a hour later in the winter – and by 10:00 am cleaning up has already began . A stretch of about one Km teems with hawkers, customers and those who have come merely to watch and to stop off at the many pubs, all of which do a roaring trade . Everything and anything is sold: antiques and junk, foodstaffs and furniture, oriental carpets and folk art. Plants are especially popular but it is fairly difficult to find the eponymous creatures that give their name to the market, although a few boats moored to the quay do a fine trade in fresh fish. And even as early as 7:00 am, a disco is in full swing in the former covered fish hall.

Many of the bleary-eyed visitors have come directly, foregoing the luxury of sleep, from the Reeperbahn, Hamburg’s most infamous street. A part of the port district of St. Pauli, it is reportedly the raunchiest red light district in Europe.

They call it European capital of public sex. And, it is really public; everything is out in the open, with no effort at concealment. Once Paris was the world’s sex capital; now it looks tame in comparison with once puritanical cities like Hamburg. Almost 1,000 “girls”, many of them extremely attractive, line the famous Ripperbahn and the small neighbouring streets, standing behind glass windows.  And, there are thousands of onlookers – mainly tourists, sailors and casual out-of-city visitors who come here to fulfill their voyeuristic pleasure. Here Live Shows are really vivid, and occasionally shocking.

Visit here (it is quite safe to roam around ) and learn why Hamburg is called ‘Sin City’. Yet, in addition to all the wickedness, St. Pauli offers pubs and discos, bowling alleys and the Panoptikum ( Germany’s only wax museum), theatre ranging from American style vaudeville to smash London musicals and a less than elegant casino.

It was in St. Pauli in 1960 in the Indra Club on the Grosse Freiheit that the Beatles started on their road to fame. For the next three years much of their playing and the evolution of their style occurred in St. Pauli , first at the Indra and then at the Kaiserkell and finally at the Top Ten.

In Hamburg you can always go back to water and away from it all. As your craft proceed to the northern tip of the outer Alster and then into the myriad canals which weave their in and out of idyllic surroundings. Here, green lawns in front of homes stretch down to the water where cabin cruisers and even gondolas are moored. Physically, the city may be a mere ten minutes away but spiritually it a matter of light years.