Hamburg, Germany — Activities
Hamburg Culture
Hamburg is renowned for its musicals (including The Lion King and Dirty Dancing) and also its cabarets and variety shows, but the dialog in all of these is in German.
At Kehrwieder Varieté-Musik-Theater, Kehrwieder 6, Speicherstadt (tel: (040) 3118 6402 or 01805 4444 for tickets; website: www.kehrwieder-variete.de), the spectacular airborne and stage acrobatics, clowns, jugglers, music and dance routines outweigh any foreign language difficulties.
The Hamburg State Opera (Hamburgische Staatsoper), Grosse Theaterstrasse 34 (tel: (040) 356 868; website: www.hamburgische-staatsoper.de) is ranked among the best in the world and its ballet company has a high reputation too. The Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra provides the music for most opera and ballet productions.
One of the most beautiful concert venues in Germany is Musikhalle/Laeiszhalle, Johannes Brahms Platz (tel: (040) 346 920; website: www.musikhalle-hamburg.de), with three halls offering a choice of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental concerts (and sometimes jazz).
To find out what’s on pick up a free copy of the monthly English-language Hamburg Guide, available from several hotels and shopping malls, or go online (website: www.hamburg-guide.de). Also see www.hamburg-tourism.de and click on Events.
Hamburg Tours
There are several bus tours, departing from Landungsbrücken or at the rear of the main railway station, Hauptbahnhof. You can take a hop-on hop-off tour or a non-stopping one-hour or two-hour tour (the latter is too much for most visitors). Look for the Stadt Rundfahrt/Hamburger Hummelbahn sign (the name of the company). It operates red double-decker buses year round and a little land-train known as the Hummelbahn (April to October) (tel: (040) 792 8979; website: www.hummelbahn.de).
In addition to the harbor tour outlined in Key Attractions, boats also tour the canals of the Speicherstadt and some combine the harbor and canals. The only difficulty is that English-language commentaries are mostly confined to group bookings. Likewise, many walking tours (covering the city center, St Pauli by day and by night, the Speicherstadt, Beatles-themed tours and so on) are available only if you have made a group booking.
An alternative is to hire a hand-held GPS audio-visual city guide which will guide you unerringly along three pre-planned routes. You can rent this from the main tourist office. For more details on tours see www.hamburg-tourism.de (click on Sightseeing, then Themes & Tours).
