My friend Ben had sent me a calendar of beer festivals in Germany this autumn. Neither of us had been able to visit Oktoberfest this year and were keen for a mulligan. Ben wanted to meet me in Stuttgart for the second-largest beer festival after Oktoberfest. I had just arrived into Split, Croatia however, and was decompressing from my time in the USA and quite enjoying it — I declined the invitation. Fast-forward a few weeks and it turns out there will be a different festival happening in Bremen the last weekend of October. We booked it – my first weekend adventure for quite some time.
I had never been to Hamburg or Bremen and this reconnaissance trip was shorter and easier than Havana and Mexico City in terms of logistics — two nights, 48 hours. Short trips like this afford the freedom to be picky on what you do with your time because with so little of it, you are unencumbered by standard tourist obligations; you can curate what is most convenient and “best” without being obliged to visit a museum that other people feel is important. I had not done a trip like this one for a while — but way back when in Bucharest, Belgrade, Brussels I loved hitting the street and following my nose to sniff out where I wanted to be with the added element of a time constraint. That’s what it felt like here in both Hamburg and Bremen.
Hamburg is a port city on the north coast of Germany and I was surprised it’s about 40% larger by population than Munich at 1.8 million people. I had always conceptualized it as being smaller. While I was in Munich a couple of years ago, people told me “you either like Berlin or Munich — never both” — they also said that Hamburg was very similar to Munich and so as a Munich-lover I was obliged to to visit. To me, the city has a nice mix between warehouses and industrial waterfront, classic architecture and modern, German infrastructure that made exploration easy.
Flew into Hamburg and spent and afternoon exploring Miniature Wonderland — an experience hard to do justice to (take a look at their website to get a taste — my photos do a poor job of explaining). It’s an enormous display of international sites and cities — all miniaturized and replete with moving cars and even taxiing and landing airplanes. Thousands of miniature models of people in various scenes thousands of cars with blinking lights. It represents an amazing feat of dedication and focus to have constructed. As to the motivation behind why it was constructed, never really figured that out.
Went out at night to a neighborhood with eclectic, small restaurants and bars and wandered, taking photographs. Had an oreo shake, burger and fries covered in chipotle pepper sauce after a pre-dinner of tapas at a Portuguese restaurant. We proceeded to visit bars for cozy drinks while making our way on foot to the Reeperbahn, Hamburg’s red-light district. These days it is now as much about bars and clubs as the sex industry — a happy medium between adventurous exploration and plausible deniability. We had the intention of attending a Halloween party at a club whose ad we had found earlier in the day — arrived at 10:30 pm to a locked entrance and surrounded by a growing number of wandering neighborhood men whom I can only describe as “scuzzy” and decided to call it a night. The Reeperbahn, unfortunately appeared very different from the images I had prefabricated of neon lights, attractive women and fun times — but hey, I’m sure I just didn’t do it right.
The next day took a 1 hour 10 minute train to Bremen to attend the Freimarkt – a yearly festival that has been happening for 1000 years. Very different from Oktoberfest — it isn’t tent-centric, but instead more like a country fairgrounds with amusement rides, games, outdoor beer venues, Prosecco stands, live music, a huge assortment of delicious German food etc. We also visited Germany’s first Christmas market of the year, in Bremen, and only a short walk from the Freimarkt festival. Everything was very convenient. Had my first glass of German, mulled wine (aka Glühwein) which was just as useful for keeping my hands warm as my body. It was fun to imagine how fun these European Christmas markets must be closer to the season, at night and with snow falling around you. Thanks for the visit Hamburg and Bremen!
