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| Entrance to the Kiel Canal from the Baltic |
I haven't got much good to say about Kiel, I'm afraid. It is a town of maybe a quarter million and was so heavily bombed during World War II that there is virtually nothing left of its former glory. It is, however, strategically placed at the foot of the Jutland peninsula and so is the starting point on the Baltic side for the great Kiel Canal that creates a short-cut from the Baltic to the North Sea. Unfortunately, we were delayed by high winds from entering the canal at the planned time and so we passed through the whole thing at night. Bummer! Nevertheless, the path of our transit was interesting because the Canal ends just as the Elbe River enters the North Sea and we had to make a left turn and sail upriver to get to Hamburg, a city I just fell in love with and would happily visit again.
Founded by Charlemagne in 808 and given the status of "Imperial Free City" by the King Frederick who is mostly known as Barbarossa because of his red hair, Hamburg was one of the major cities of the Hanseatic League, which was a "free trade" area organized not by countries or city states, but my major trading houses in the 13th century. The League stretched all through the Baltic from Novgorod in Russia to Hamburg and Amsterdam and then on to London. By banding together, the merchants could cooperate in clearing the Baltic of pirates and make better use of the goods in which each area specialized -- furs from Russia, wood from Norway, wool from England and so on -- all enriching the merchant houses through whose hands the trade goods passed. But the age of exploration put an end to the League's dominance as countries like Holland, England, Portugal and Spain gained access to the far richer resources of Asia and the New World in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Hamburg has been shaped by the water that surrounds and runs through it. The continent's second largest port rests along the shores of two lakes, the Inner and Outer Alster, and is divided by three rivers (the Elbe, Alster and Bille) and a series of canals. More than 2300 bridges link Hamburg's various districts -- more than Amsterdam and Venice combined. Because of its superb location, Hamburg remained a major trading power as the Hanseatic League collapsed. The canal, although it suffered major damage during World War II, was not bombed by the allies because they were going to need it once they liberated Holland and western Germany. And so Hamburg survived to rise again.
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| Church of St. Michael |
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| Altar, Church of St. Michael |
The beautiful Church of St. Michael and several other historic buildings, such as the gorgeous city hall (a real rival of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris), survived World War II with only minor damage.
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| Hamburg City Hall |
The one area that was heavily bombed but rebuilt in its original form after the War is the Speicherstadt Quarter, a series of canals lined with high brick warehouses, now a World
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Warehouse
Speicherstadt Quarter, Hamburg |
Heritage site. It takes you right back to the days of sailing ships and cargo hoisted to the warehouse floor right out of the hold by cranes mounted from an overhanging beam at the roof peak.
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| View over Alster Lake |
The rest of the city is full of arresting modern architecture, including the new Opera House which is built atop a warehouse on the river's edge. The center of the city is on an accessible scale with the beautiful Alster Lakes within easy reach of downtown. The neighborhood around Alster Lake remains one of elegant homes and the road around it is a kind of millionaire's row. Like Amsterdam, there's also a renowned red light district, Reeperbahn Street.
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| Street Scene with St. Michael's Church Spire |
One of the things you'll notice from the photo of the view over Alster Lake is the number of church spires. I've seen the same thing everywhere we've been in Northern Europe. These places either never had or have long since repurposed gothic cathedrals and the result is a forest of church spires that express their own reaching to God. What's especially nice is the way the spires stand over otherwise ordinary street scapes, making them feel exceptional (see photo at right).
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| Alpine Village, Miniature Wonderland |
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| St. Peter's Square, Miniature Wonderland |
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| Venice, Miniature Wonderland |
A strange but fascinating attraction is the Miniature Wonderland. It is privately built and operated as far as I could make out by a bunch of toy train fanatics who have re-created cities and whole landscapes (e.g. the Swiss Alps) on two levels in one of the old warehouses. As I'm a lover of toy trains too, I was enthralled by the creativity of this group of train buffs. Truly, this goes beyond anything you've ever seen. It looked to me like the many passenger and freight trains are on the HO scale and so is everything else. Buses and trucks speed along roads and stop at traffic lights.
There's an operational airport with planes that take off. There's Venice with its canals, St. Peter's Square, Las Vegas with its hotels on the strip, and of course Hamburg itself. I've really never seen anything like it!
