Hamburg - Auf Wiedersehn Deutschland!

So my time in Germany is about to come to an end - yes I'll probably go through northern Germany on the night train en route to Amsterdam but in terms of stopping over in a German city to look at things, Hamburg is very much my last stop.

It means I've done all the big 4 German cities - Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne along with the likes of Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Heidelberg, Freiburg im Breisgau, Mainz, Nuremberg, Duesseldorf, Dortmund & Dresden. So pretty much all of Germany.

Hamburg is definitely up there at the top of the list of cool German cities. In fact, if only I could have my stag-do in Hamburg because it seems to be the place to do stag-dos and hen's parties judging from the number of groups I saw on Saturday afternoon. Mind you, it'd have to be done over a week before the wedding given that once you hit the nightclubs on Gross Freiheit in St Pauli, there's the Fischmarkt from 5:30am till noon on Sunday to continue the partying - there was one hen's party that I saw on Saturday afternoon still hitting the Fischmarkt as noon approached.

Gross Freiheit is part of the famous St Pauli district cut by the Reeperbahn with its infamous erotic shops. The most infamous highlight is Herbertstrasse off Davidstrasse with its stalls featuring busty prostitutes. I only saw the street on a Sunday afternoon when it was rather quiet but imagine it on a Friday or Saturday night.

So auf wiedersehn Deutschland! I've always liked you and if there was any country I would like to stay and work it's Deutschland. And now I kinda have an affinity with your national fussballmannschaft too.

Grosse Freiheit - the Beetles started out here

Herbertstrasse on a quiet Sunday morning

Speicherstadt

Anyway here are my favourite bits from Germany: