That's not to say there isn't anything to see or do in Hamburg. I find the city quite interesting as each district seems to have its own flavour to it.
The harbor is very lively and has a definite maritime feel to it. Shipyards and docks stretch out into the haze, and even the street performers in the area seem to reflect the coastal atmosphere.
On an island next to the port area is HafenCity. The island used to be full of run down warehouses and now the entire area is being rebuilt as trendy cafes and offices - basically just building a modern high class commercial district out of nothing.
Most of the big chain shopping is along the channel that connects the river Elbe with the lake in the middle of the city. In this area and around the lake there were a few events going on over the weekend. One square had a Chinese cultural fair, which I had dinner at, and a block away around the edge of the man-made part of the lake there was a big LGBT street party going on. Further north on the natural part of the lake people were just hanging out enjoying the day.
West, right in the heart of the city is a smaller, more placid lake surrounded by a big woodland park and botanical gardens. It was a nice escape from all the urban exploring I've been doing recently.
The last part of the city I really want to talk about is the Schanze and St. Pauli districts. This was my favourite part of the city, and where I spent the most time. They are a little run down, but the cheaper housing leads to a lot of young people and immigrants in the area, and I just found it was the area with the most culture and energy, the best food, and of course, the street art. There was one building in particular in Schanze that used to be a theatre (I think) and was used to stage multiple protests. Now it seems like some sort of squat.
I had a nice Indian curry for lunch around here yesterday, and the food in general seemed cheaper and more interesting than anywhere else in the city. The street art deserves special mention too. Hamburg is another of the big street art cities in Germany, but it has a very different feel to it. It has very little actually spray painted art, but possibly more stickers and definitely more sculpture/installation work than Berlin. I'm going to do a few artist spotlights for Hamburg later, but the amount of tiles, foam and other things mounted up around the city was crazy. El Bocho has visited Hamburg recently as well, and almost all of the paste-up work I saw was from him.
That last one is my favourite wall of the city. I love the two different-style cat pieces, but a bit surprised that with such an obvious setup El Bocho went with one of his colourful girl pastes instead of a Little Lucy one. Maybe there's some unwritten code that you don't paste up anti-cat material on an obviously pro-cat wall, although El Bocho hasn't worried about ruffling cat-lovers in the past.
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