EUROTIMES | Volume 18 | Issue 5

The 13th EURETINA Congress in Hamburg this September will provide delegates and guests with the opportunity of enjoying some

of Europe’s most novel tourist attractions.Miniature Wonderland, known as “the

largest model railway in the world,” occupies a floor of a Speicherstadt warehouse. It’s an astonishing layout that boasts more than 12,000 metres of tracks in HO scale, divided into seven sections. Begun in 2000, it won’t be completed until 2020; meanwhile, it gets bigger every day and visitors can watch the model makers at work.

At the moment there are about 900 trains made up of 11,000 carriages. Circumvent the almost perpetual queue by buying your ticket from your hotel concierge or book online at: www.minatur-wunderland.com.

The extent of the installation is the first surprise. It covers 1,500 square metres – the Alps are five to six metres high. Whole cities are reproduced including Hamburg with 200 separate and recognisable buildings. Buttons on the railings surrounding the display allow visitors to instigate a ‘fire alert’. One of the buildings catches fire and fire trucks respond, the number of them depending on a randomly assigned level of conflagration. The newest addition is an airport with regularly arriving and departing flights, tracked on a board just as in a proper airport. From time to time the lights fade over Miniature Wonderland and it becomes night. Some 50,000 electric lights illuminate the cities, the roadways, the tunnels, the airport. It’s a short night and

then it’s dawn again. Kehrwieder 2-4, Block D Speicherstadt. Open Monday to Friday 9:30am - 6pm, Tuesday to 9pm, Saturday 8am - 9pm, Sunday 8:30am - 8pm.

When the lights really do go down in the city, Hamburg’s red-light district, Reeperbahn, switches on. Other cities, notably Amsterdam, have famous red-light districts but nowhere else can claim to be

the place the Beatles found their style, their haircuts and their first public. ‘Beatle tours’ leave the Reeperbahn area at 4pm on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. For details, visit: www.beatles-tour.com. A memorial square, Beatles-Platz, containing five stainless steel outline sculptures of the group is at the intersection of Reeperbahn and Grosse Freiheit (Great Freedom) Street.

Grosse Freiheit is where Hamburg’s erotic theatres flourish. Entrance fees are low but drinks come at a price. In the Safari Club, for example, a single beer might cost €25. For details, visit: www.safari-hamburg.de. Back on the Reeperbahn, note the entrance to Herbertstrasse. The sign on the red gate that bars the way warns the street is off limits to female tourists and those under 19. The Reeperbahn Festival, now in its eighth year, runs from Thursday 26th until Saturday 28th September 2013. Some 250 new international bands, solo artists and indie stars will be showcased in and around Hamburg. For details, visit: www.reeperbahnfestival.com.

The classic finale to a Saturday night on the Reeperbahn is breakfast in the St Pauli Fish Market, a five-minute walk away from the S-bahn Landungsbrucken or S-bahn Reeperbahn stops. Stalls are open Sunday morning from 5:30 until 9:30 or 10 selling fish fruit, vegetables and much more. In the old fish auction hall, enjoy a lavish breakfast surrounded by people drinking beer, singing and dancing to live music before the rest of Hamburg is out of bed.

Hamburg’s museum-ship, the Rickmer Rickmers, won the Cutty Sark Tall Ships race in 1958 as the “Sagres.” Then she was a Portuguese cadet training ship. Now restored and under her original name, the three-masted bark is proudly berthed in Hamburg’s harbour. The onboard museum unravels her tangled history. Enjoy a meal – fish is a specialty – in the ship’s handsome mess hall. The museum is open daily from 10:00 to 18:00, the restaurant 11:00 to 18:00. For details, visit: www.rickmer-rickmers.de.

If you prefer your ships on dry land, visit the ten-storey International Maritime Museum in a converted warehouse in the picturesque Speicherstadt area. Opened in 2008, it houses the incredible private collection of Prof Peter Tamm, Sr. Exhibitions range over 3,000 years of maritime history; some 26,000 model ships, numerous uniforms and a wide assortment of naval trappings are on view. You’ll see famous steam engines, marine research exhibitions and the nearly seven metres long Lego model of the Queen Mary 2. Koreastrasse 1. Closed Monday. Open Tuesday-Sunday 10:00 to 18:00. Thursday closing is at 20:00. For details, visit: www.internationales-maritimes-museum.de.

“Dialogue in the Dark” has become a worldwide phenomenon, but only in Hamburg can you experience the original Dialogue; this is where the concept originated in 1988. Blind guides lead groups of visitors through specially constructed rooms in which scent, sound, wind, temperature and texture substitute for information no longer provided by sight. The visitor is led through a park, a city street, a boat cruise, a bar with these unexceptional routines becoming a new and possibly bewildering experience. In the process, accustomed roles are reversed: people who can see are taken out of their familiar environment as blind people provide them with security and a sense of orientation, transmitting to them the sense of a world in which vision plays no part.

“Dinner in the Dark” is a variation of the experience. The evening begins with a champagne reception at 7pm in the light of the foyer. Then diners are brought in small groups into the dark rooms of the exhibition where they learn to employ different senses to understand their surroundings. Finally, blind waiters serve a four-course “surprise” dinner in complete darkness. Visitors must rely on alternate senses to identify the food – and to preserve their table manners. (Dinner is €55). For details, visit: www.dialog-im-dunkeln.de.

ONLY IN HAMBURGExperience six of the city’s unique attractions

34 Update

EYE ON TRAVEL

by Maryalicia Post

The Rickmer Rickmers museum-ship

The world’s largest train set at Miniature Wonderland Control Room at Miniature Wonderland