Hamburg ~ City Hall (Rathaus)

 

Our lunch stop after visiting St. Nikolia.

We had eaten at a Hans im Glück when we visited Munich. I was excited to learn it was the place OFD had chosen for lunch. I finally got a radler and enjoyed most of that very large burger and tasty coleslaw salad. The interior of the restaurant chains has tree trunks as decor. The chain started in Munich in 2010. It is named after a Germanic fairy tale. 

Funny story about this postal carrier...OFD buys postcards and stamps at each port to send to her niece and nephew. It is always easy to find the postcards, but a bit more challenging to find stamps and a post box to mail them. In Hamburg, we had the cards ready for mailing, but we couldn't find a mailbox. As we were walking to St. Michaelis we met this mail carrier on the sidewalk. I asked if we could leave the stamped postcards with him to be mailed to the USA. He assured us he would get them sent and was willing to have his photo taken. Good memory!

Our final awe-inspiring building in Hamburg was our walk through City Hall or Rathaus.

This was our bus drop-off and meeting point after our self-tour of Hamburg. We saved this building until last.

Constructed from 1886 to 1897, the city hall still houses its original governmental functions with the office of the First Mayor of Hamburg and the meeting rooms for the Parliament and the Senate (the city's executive branch).

After the old city hall was destroyed in the great fire of 1842, as were the two churches we visited. (all of the building in the photo is part of City Hall)

Lions (and the police) guard the street entrance.

The tower is 367 feet high and has 436 steps. We did not climb them or count them.

The courtyard is decorated with a Hygieia fountain. Hygieia as the goddess of health and hygiene in Greek mythology. 

The fountain was built in remembrance of the cholera epidemic in 1892, the former technical purpose was air cooling in the city hall.

Its surrounding figures represent the power and pureness of the water. 

Isn't that a cool window?

the courtyard resembles an Italian piazza

City Hall has 647 (known) rooms; Buckingham Palace has 775 rooms

the ornate lobby

vaulted ceiling

public drinking/water fountain

The lobby is open to the public and hosts concerts and exhibitions.

the main doors of City Hall

one of the streets from Market Square

We saw very few homeless people or signs of a homeless population in any of the countries we visited. 

This photo is for Ruth: OFD is smiling! 

virtual souvenirs for two more German states (port state)

cruise port for Hamburg tour

The Sailor by Karlheinz Goedtke

Kiel, known for the sport of sailing, is a port on both sides of the Kiel Fjord, an inlet of the Baltic Sea, and lies at the eastern end of the Kiel Canal.

sailboats on the water as we left Kiel

lots of sailboats 

sunset on the Baltic Sea

freighter on the Baltic Sea

sunset

our cruise ship passed under this bridge on the way to Copenhagen

Next:  Copenhagen