Hamburg is very different to Berlin; Berlin was held in a state of disarray following WWII and the shared occupation by the Allies and Soviets, while Hamburg was a thriving independent city. Despite the name, the Hamburgers were better in Berlin.
While there I did a walking tour and explored some of the city. One of the more notable buildings is the Chilehaus building from the 1920's; designed to look like a sailboat to show homage to Hamburg's port city roots.
Following this I climbed the St Michaelis church tower to get a perspective of the size of the city. The large tower you can see in the photo below is St Nikolai's church, unfortunately most of which had been bombed out during WWII and was in scaffolding today. This church was easily the biggest I'd seen in Europe to date.
Next up was a walk to the warehouse district. These warehouses were used as storage for trade goods when Hamburg was a major European trading town. Built outside the main city walls they offered a way to avoid taxes on goods at the time!
It's worth noting that Hamburg was the first German city to be bombed outside of gaining military advantage - it was targeted as a civilian city. The town was fire bombed by the RAF and USAAF in an effort dubbed Operation Gomorrah - due to the proximity to the water and the town being a windy city, the result was a fireball inferno in the town centre.
Over 42,000 causalities resulted from the week-long Allied bombing run. The site of the St Nikolai's church has been set up as a memorial to those who died during WWII.
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