Continuing our European journey… Since Alice tested positive for COVID, we were stuck in Hamburg for the next 5 nights. Thankfully she didn’t have any symptoms so we were still able to do stuff. She wore a mask when we went out just out of caution. Inside, we operated as normal and none of us got COVID from her. Whatever she had must have been pretty mild.
Things we did in Hamburg
Hamburg definitely has plenty to do. I guess if we had to be stuck somewhere, Hamburg definitely isn’t the worst place to be stuck at. The city is very very clean, the roads (and everything) are in PRISTINE condition. You can’t find any pot holes or broken curb or anything. The public transit goes everywhere. The city is very family friendly – almost all attractions sell family tickets that makes it cheaper than 2 adults. Also there’s faster public Wi-Fi everywhere.
I’ve talked about Miniature Wonderland in the first blog of this series, but since it’s the best attraction of the city, I wanted to mention it again so if someone was only reading this blog, they don’t miss this amazing attraction. To read about our experience of Miniature Wonderland, please click here.
Elbphilharmonie, Elbi for short, is a famous concert hall and an architectural wonder. There are many tours available for Elbi, in different languages available. I didn’t think my kids would be that interested in visiting a concert hall, so we mostly came here to check out the view. There’s a 360° view near the top, and the access to it is by a super long escalator that was pretty cool. The best part of all is that this was entirely free. You just have to pick up a ticket at the window before going in. Elbi is also a hotel.
Rickmer Rickmers is a 19th century sailing ship and museum. There are 3 levels and there’s a restaurant as well. It takes about an hour to walk through the ship and you can visit all the different compartments and rooms, imagine what it must have been like living on a ship in the late 1890s to the early 1950s.
Chocoversum is a popular chocolate museum. We took the tour which showed us from room to room how chocolate is made. We got to try what each stage tastes like (more delicious every stage!), then at the final room, we each got to make our own chocolate with different toppings. This was definitely a very family friendly, fun activity. The entire tour is done in German, but for English speakers, we were given a QR code to scan and read from our smartphone what was said in each room. Ava participated without the use of a phone and had no problem understanding the tour guide. She has also learned in her German class about the process of chocolate so I’m sure that helped as well.
Dialogue in Silence is located in the same building as Dialogue in the Dark, which we did afterwards. Dialogue in Silence was a workshop lead by a deaf and mute instructor who showed us what it’s like to speak with our facial expressions and hand gestures. By the end of the class, we were able to describe ourselves a little without using words. There was also a Q&A session at the end that allowed us to ask any question we wished and there was a translator to tell us her answers. The experience was really cool and unique and enjoyable for people of all ages.
Dialogue in the Dark takes the tourist into total darkness with a walking stick, and experience what a normal day might be like for an average blind person. There is a leader who is blind, that helps us through each area. The first area was a park, pretending to be an area we had to walk through to get to work (I think). There was bridge we had to cross, turns we had to make, etc. We could hear sounds of birds and water babbling from a creek. Next we were at home, and we were told to find as much furniture as we could. I found a couch, table, microwave and some other things. Next we walked through some “streets” and came to a bar. We were given some menu items and if we had cash, we could order the drinks with the cash we had (in the dark). Since we had no cash on us, we had to resort to being charged later. We sat at the bar and drank our beer (which wasn’t very good) and we could hear other people sitting nearby chatting so it felt very realistic. This was a very unique experience just like the Dialogue in Silence, but I think I learned more in the silent one than this one. The kids enjoyed the Darkness one more, and the adults enjoyed the silent one more. Make sure you put away your watches that might light up before entering the dark room.
This is a car museum mostly focused on Porsche. A lot of details on each car, in both German and English. Definitely some cool cars to see here, and there’s a racing game where you get to sit in a real racing car and drive (the car doesn’t actually move). A good place to spend about 1 hour or 2.
This is a submarine that you can visit and take a guided tour (in German only). The inside is really cool. You can see the original living conditions. It does require some dexterity to go through some of the areas but we all managed. It wasn’t busy when I went – I’d imagine it can be pretty slow to get around if it is busy though. There’s a shop next to it with some souvenirs to buy as well.
Discovery Dock is a cool virtual reality experience that tells you some history about Hamburg. There are several stations for different activities and the best one in my opinion is the one we get to ride in a car. The experience takes about an hour and you go from station to station (in no particular order) to play with each one. I couldn’t really figure out how to switch the language on a few of the stations so I wasn’t really able to do much on those. I do believe if you do the car ride and read the map model, you’ve pretty much got the most out of this place.
Restaurants in Hamburg
As mentioned in our earlier blogs, we ate a few breakfasts and the first night dinner at our hotel restaurant, Kitchens. You can read about it here.
Mr. Phung is a fast food Asian restaurant located inside Folsch-Block Mall. The location isn’t far from Rathhaus, which means we walked by it quite often. Mr. Phung was a lifesaver for us because it was so easy to order something to go and take it to the hotel. They had a good variety of Asian options and the price was great.
Korri Speisekontor is a contemporary German restaurant that’s known for their Sunday brunch buffets. We came on a Sunday to see what it’s all about. The food was pretty good. The chef shows up at your table when you are first seated and insists on taking you to the buffet bars and explain everything to you, even though the chef didn’t speak any English and clearly couldn’t understand what he was talking about. The food was very good and the baked goods were impressive.
Heimat is a stylish restaurant located inside the 25hours Hotel, serving German, Swiss and Austrian cuisine. The food here is unique and very very good.
Alice’s favorite restaurant in Germany. Kofookoo yam’cha is an all-you-can-order restaurant that serves Japanese cuisine. The service was extremely fast, but stick with their sushi and noodles. The western dishes like lamb chops or meat skewers were really not that good. The restaurant has a strict policy of eating all you order, and will charge you fees if you don’t finish.
Wildes Fräulein is a super cute, health conscious breakfast and lunch restaurant next to our hotel. There is one seat in the restaurant that is a little ski gondola. We thought it was cute, and the host immediately told us we could sit in it! The food was great – we all tried something different, and the server was very patient and friendly with us.
Goa is an Indian restaurant in HafenCity. I was craving for Thali and Goa showed up in my searches so we gave it a whirl. Thali rarely disappoints and this was no exception. I also loved the fact they had some mulled wine with Indian spices and herbs.
Bianc is a Michelin starred restaurant located steps away from our hotel. We had trouble getting a reservation, but our hotel front desk staff was able to secure a reservation for us last minute. Like most Michelin starred restaurants we’ve experienced, the menu is mostly a chef’s tasting menu, and the experience was expensive but amazing. One caveat was that they offered us champagne as soon as we sat down, without telling us how much it was. We assumed it was possibly complimentary (as part of the multi-course meal), but it wasn’t. I see some other reviews online where others have made the same mistake as us. Our bill for the two of us totaled over 600 euros.
Conclusion
This concludes our time in Hamburg. The next part of our trip is in Frankfurt. At this point, we get to do the rest of the trip as we planned since the cruise would have been over now. We had 5 extra nights in Hamburg, which was a lot longer than planned, but we did do a lot of stuff and made lots of memories. Things didn’t go all smooth sailing from here either…