Red Light District, Hamburg

Hamburg is a very open city. Therefore do not be surprised when you leave the train station to see numerous sex shops on many streets. There are a number of such places around the St Pauli area and the area near the train station in the direction of the suburbs. If you are of a sensitive disposition, avoid these areas! Many have doors open to welcome those passing by!

Most of the strip joints around the Reeperbahn will not exactly be the most God-fearing, clean cut of establishments, but they (as strip clubs go) be reasonably convivial.

Your enjoyment in watched various East European ladies get their kit off and sliding up and down a piece of stainless steel can be marred by the antics of some fellow 'customers'.

Nearly all strip-clubs will feature at least one stag party, usually from some part of the United Kingdom where the local women wear less on a night out than most of the strippers in Hamburg end up wearing.

The unwritten rules of the Scottish Stag party :

1) Do not enter a strip joint sober - it is just not done.
2) Only one person of the party may obviously stare at a stripping girl, all others must make 'ribald' comments or concentrate on the drinking.
3) Make lewd comments to the bar staff
4) Always explain to performers exactly how their life could be improved by sexual congress with a Scotsman
5) One of the stag party must insist on trying to join a stripper on stage
6) One member of the stag party must take some of their own clothes off in a effort to show then 'how it is done properly'.
7) One member of the stag party must be thrown out by the bouncers.
8) One member of the stag party (preferably the Groom) must have a private dance, and lose his wallet
9) One member of the stag party must claim that his wife makes a better job of getting her kit off than the current stripper
10) One member of the stag party must request a strip invoving a kilt, a haggis and bagpipes.

According to most of my friends who work nightly the musical theatres in the Reeperbahn area, since the Spring of 2006 they've noticed a rather new phenonmenon: pickpocketing!

With the imminent arrival of the FIFA World Cup 2006, there's been an influx of people coming into Germany to work for the Games, and people coming into Germany to "WORK THE GAMES", if you get my meaning.

It appears that practically overnight, grifters and petty thieves are showing up to work the overcrowded, heavily touristed Reepbahn strip, whereas in the past,if you wanted to get into trouble there you had to really be in some desolate, backwater, alleyway establishment. Apparently the pickpockets have arrived to work the most popular Red Zone in Germany, and for the first time in ever, I think it's advisable for visitors to carry a hidden moneybelt.

If possible, try to leave your passports with the hotel safe and navigate Hamburg with your regular driver's liscence, state, or student I.D. Refrain from carrying your ATM card at night if you can and carry only cash in a protected hidden money bag. If you forget to bring one, I know they sell them at the large newspaper shops in the Central Station and Altona Bahnhof.

If one stays on the main strip of the Reeperbahn, they are generally quite safe and should basically just exercise the same amount of caution they would any other big city at night. A word about the train to and from the Reeperbahn, though: after a certain hour on weekends, some of the more colorful patrons become quite drunken and beligerent. Ignore their antics (while still being aware) and you'll make it to the Reeperbahn just fine. Also excercise caution while exiting the station, as it will be filled a few wandering drunks. As a rule, the station is usually relatively full on weekend nights with young people and other tourists on their way to the nightclubs, but, you will probably trip over or bump into a wino or two on your way out!

It's told to be one of the safest places in Hamburg, and probably it is since there's a big Polizei building in the middle of it! Anyway there's always full of people at night, much drunk ones and a bit of attention is surely needed.
There are prostitutes along some streets, they will try to offer you a good sex night and it's hard to say "nein" to some very pretty ones! ;-)
Anyway, I didn't see any really big danger there...

As everyone knows, the Reeperbahn is not the safest place to go. Best to go in a group of 3 or 4 people and avoid side streets with strange looking bars.
It would nevertheless be a shame not to visit the Reeperbahn and some of the shops!

The hustling from prostitutes can seem aggressive on the surrounding streets around St Pauli.

Reeperbahn/St. Pauli is not a safe place for girls to go alone! It's a shame not to visit, but be careful!