Museums, Hamburg

If it does not stop raining and you do not want to do something too cultural - this is a perfect fun museum: The "wonderland of miniature" - a model railway or rather model world. Really cute - also for adult children. I loved it and you can spend hours with watching the small pieces going around. It is pretty funny with many cute details - like Santa Clause coming from a toilet in the forest, or a love couple in a field of sunflowers...

Some facts: more than 500 m² of landscape, about 60,000 trees, same in figures, 5,000 cars, 7,000 meter of tracs, 3,000 houses and bridges, etc. - it is huge!

Here's their homepage: www.miniatur-wunderland.com

This is a rather new museum located just opposite the train station Veddel. It is about emigration from Germany to Americas in the 19th and 20th century, in which Hamburg as a harbour town loomed large of course. First Hamburg was not that popular as starting point for emigration. People had to wait for a long time in overcrowded, overpriced accomodations in the city and were maybe already bankrupt before they could leave Germany. There were awful sanitary conditions and epidemic plagues. But then a certain Albert Ballin created the emigration halls in Veddel, a secure accomodation with dormitories, restaurants and even a church. It was like a small town of it´s own for emigrants. These halls were demolished, but some of them rebuilt again for museum purposes.
You can see a rather interesting exhibition, similar to the one at Cap San Diego. It tells you about the fate of single persons, about the procedures to emigrate, and about daily life in Ballinstadt. You can also do reasearch if your relatives were on board of one of those vessels - this is also possibly under www.ancestry.de. By the way, Mr. Ballin killed himself by the end of WW I using poison.
Entrance fee is EUR 9,50.

The "Miniaturwunderland" is a tremendous "museum" with miniature trains in different scenarios.
The grade of detail is very high and precise. Everything is moving, even they have autonomous cars etc. moving within the scenes.
It is getting bigger and bigger every year. Everytime you drop in you will discover new details and features.
On some days there might be so much people waiting for entrance that it can take up to more than 45 mins.
You will get a rough overview and also information on waiting times on their web page.

One of the more different attractions of Hamburg is this Russian U-Boat that lays docked along the Elbe River originally used for spying and reconaissance patrols. Today it is a museum and one can visit the inside and obtain a glimpse of how the 78 sailors operating it lived and worked in this 92 meter long steel "cigar". Sadly if you are not good on foot this is not a visit for you, since one has to be quiet mobile to explore this submarine.

Cap San Diego is the world biggest seagoing museum transport ship. It has a huge and impressing engine room with three or four levels. It also serves as an hotel starting with about 75 Euro for a single cabine.
www.capsandiego.de, phone: +49 (0)40 36 42 09

Rickmer Rickmers is one of the last merchant sailing ships is more than 110 years old. It is one of Hamburgs "land"-marks.
www.rickmer-rickmers.info/82.html, e-mail: info@rickmer-rickmers.de, phone: +49 (0)40 31 95 95 9

Old English Lightship (Feuerschiff)
This is not really a museum. The owner transformed this ship into a bar and restaurant and a jazz programm is offered in the middle of the harbour. A unique place to have a drink.
www.das-feuerschiff.de

Good art museum with many travellling exhibits, particularly famous for its collection of German romantic art of the 19th century. I was glad to be here to catch a superb exhibit concertning Caspar David Friedrich, one of the pioneers of painterly romanticism. (I have a print of his most famous work, "The Wanderer," hanging in my living room!) The Kunsthalle is the home of "The Wanderer," as well as several other of Friedrich's iconic canvases, and for the exhibit was also able to borrow Friedrich's works from other great collections in Berlin and St. Petersburg.

The basement of the Kunstalle contains a passageway connecting it to the neighboring Galerie der Gegenwart, a superior collection of contemporary art with special emphasis on modern German masters like Richter and Kiefer. Interesting "installations" - some of them rather silly, perhaps, but others quite creative.

I'm not much into classics - I like more impressionism ... but it was astonishing to see really extraordinary pieces of work in live ... For the first time in Hamburg I realized how great were those painters ...

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Peterstrasse could be on the first view a really nice example of old, traditional architecture, BUT in fact most of these buildings had been built between 1967 and 1970 by Alfred C.Toepfer. Only a few buildings like Beylingstift (Nr.35-39) date back to the year 1751.
The famous composer Johannes Brahms used to live in #39 and so there is a museum there about him
I would wish, that more such buildings would exist in Hamburg. In fact most of the city is quite modern with a lot of glass-architecture. There is also a nice local restaurant with a great interior there : "Der Alte Senator"
Brahmsmuseum is open for visitors only
Tuesday & Thursday10.00a.m.-01.00p.m.
and upon appointment !