Three days in the harbour and trade city of Hamburg. Our first night we walked by the Binnenalster (inner alster / lake) and the Außenalster (outer alster) enjoying the sea breeze and enjoying the first time we have felt temperatures under 30 degrees in over a week! The walk was relaxing with lots of locals jogging by the water and sitting by the lake in front of the affluent hotels and restaurants by the Binnenalster. The Rathaus (town hall) was one of the only (maybe the only) town hall in Germany that wasn't destroyed in WW2. It's an impressive castle-like building with all surrounding streets leading towards it, so if you aimlessly walk around the city the chances are you will end up back at the town hall! Inside there's a quiet bar and restaurant where we had a nice dinner followed by a traditional northern German dessert called Rote Grutze, Thomas says it's literally translated as "red goo" but the restaurant tried to call it "red berry jelly" with vanilla sauce. It is red goo. It's basically a massive bowl of berry coulis with a tiny sprinkling of vanilla sauce on top. This would be nice if there was a sponge cake underneath but you're expected to just eat the goo on it's own! Thomas shared the local insight with me about how he got by at parties when it would be rude if he didn't have some... the tip is to make a bowl that is 50/50 goo to vanilla sauce... haha not the way it's meant to be but think I'll go for that next time! After dinner in the north, the Germans like to help their meal digest with a cool glass of Kustennebel which is 'coast fog', similar to the drink I tried in Dusseldorf, this tastes like a chilled licquorice drink. Except this one is actually nice! However I have been warned that I wouldn't feel the same if it wasn't chilled :)

After dinner on our first night we found an Irish pub that was downstairs a few streets back from the town hall. Manchester United were playing on the tv and I could only hear people speaking English. Even when Thomas ordered our beers in German, the Irish Paddy behind the bar answered him English! If I'd had more than one stein there I soon could have convinced myself we had actually travelled to the UK and not to Hamburg!

Walking around the city during the day we saw the old red buildings along the Elbe river that used to be used for storage warehouses and have wooden doors that are accessible from the river making them look like a loading dock area on water. Now they are mostly a few shops and museums, whereas the new harbour city is still under construction.

Further along the river, past the cruises to the island where the Lion King musical is played, we found a groovy little roof top bar called Hamburg City Beach Club. The floor was sand and there were hammocks, straw lounges and deck chairs for you to lounge in while sipping your cold bevvies! Much like the layout of the cafes in the other German cities we've been to so far, all the chairs face outwards. By that I mean, the chairs face watching the harbour and hardly any of them face the person you're actually there with! And when I looked around everyone is just chilling out looking over the water without much chatting at all. The cafes were similar particularly in Dusseldorf on Konigsallee - all the cafe chairs faced the foot path so that guests could people watch, rather than chat to their company. I haven't quite worked this out yet, other than maybe it's a result of working hard and then the feel after work is that you just want to chill out without any small talk. Perhaps.

So what else about Hamburg, are the stories about the red light district and the over active related trades in Hamburg true? Well our hotel was next to a multi-storey sex shop, and it wasn't the only one on the street - I think that's enough said. We were staying in the dodgy end of town, not actually near the Reeperbahn (yes there's another dodgy end!) but on the wrong side of the main station (Hamburg hbf). We walked through the Reeperbahn and Davidstr. at night and being a week night there were a few girls on the street but not too much going on, though Thomas had made sure that I got changed from my daytime summer dress into jeans before we walked through to make sure there wasn't too much unwanted attention!

One of the other things I noticed was that people were noticeably less attractive in Hamburg. Pretty sure that Thomas and I were the best looking couple in the whole city!

Next stop - five days in Berlin!!