"Willkommen, Welcome, Benvenuti": People from around the world, standing before the pyramids of Gizeh, the Taj Majal of India, the Statue of Liberty in New York or the Colosseum of Rome, are seen in a Youtube video welcoming the latest member of the club of UNESCO's World Cultural Heritage Sites - Hamburg's warehouse city, the Speicherstadt, located on the Elbe River. The brick warehouses are neo-Gothic in style. The buildings are connected by roads, canals and bridges. History comes alive here, and there is plenty to see and do.
"I hope that people of Hamburg, as well as from the rest of the world, will take a closer look at the Speicherstadt," says Frederik Braun, managing director of the "Miniatur Wunderland" (miniature wonderland) - the world's largest model railroad that is located in the warehouse district and has attracted tourists from around the world over the years. "It is phenomenal, what we have, right here in the middle of the city." Hamburg Tourism chief Dietrich von Albedyll adds: "The Speicherstadt and counting-house district are a good example of how history can be experienced." The World Cultural Heritage Site is already thoroughly geared for tourism, with the old brick neo-Gothic warehouses now a cultural district of museums, designer showrooms, upmarket boutiques and restaurants making it a lively meeting-place with real flair.
Located directly next to the Miniatur Wunderland is the Hamburg Dungeon, where visitors can spend over an hour and a half exploring the scary side of Hamburg's history - hangings during the 30 Years War, decapitations like that of the famous pirate Klaus Stoertebeker, or the devastation of the great fire of 1842. On the other side of the "Fleet," or canal, there is the Speicherstadt Museum which captures the mercantile atmosphere of the Elbe River city. The weighing and inspecting of such products all the way through to their final processing, as well as the storage in the warehouses of such imported goods as coffee, cocoa, tobacco, tea and rubber are shown here. Meanwhile, in the spice museum called Spicy's right next door, visitors are expressly permitted to smell, taste and touch more than 50 raw spices.
Just a few metres further on, visitors can enter the Kesselhaus, the late-19th century, three-story erstwhile energy utility for the Speicherstadt, now an information centre about the latest developments of the new HafenCity district in the port with the cruise shipping center and the spectacular Elbphilharmonie concert hall. At the eastern end of the roughly 1.5-kilometre-long stretch of warehouses there is the German Customs Museum that illustrates the history of customs clearance - as well as the ways smugglers tried to hide and smuggle goods. Meanwhile, in a "Dialogue in the Dark" visitors are led by a blind guide through an absolutely pitch dark place where they experience the sounds, smells and temperatures around them, thereby experiencing something of the everyday life of the blind.
At the International Maritime Museum more than 3,000 years of shipping history are illustrated, with more than 40,000 miniature ship models made of gold, silver, and amber, as well as a model of the cruise ship "Queen Mary 2" made of a million Legostein pieces. Display items are from every corner of the globe.
In the pavilion "Osaka 9" visitors can delve more deeply into the issue of ecological sustainability of urban centres, while car lovers will head to the Prototyp car museum where there are some 45 racing cars produced after the end of World War II. So there is a great deal to see in the Speicherstadt and counting-house district. With all the attractions, it can easily take more than a day to take it all in. And, now that it is a UNESCO site, its popularity - and the crowds - likely to grow.
Comments
Comments are closed.