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FRA is probably the European airport I’ve flown into the largest number of times and it remains a particularly annoying one. On this trip, we had approximately an hour wait after arrival before our bags came out. I’d booked a night at the Hilton Garden Inn, which is in Squaire, a development that includes a few other hotels, various places to eat, and some other stuff and, most significantly, is immediately on top of the station for long-distance trains. What it does not have is decent signage. In fact, the signs for the hotel (and all the other airport hotels) actually lead you quite a distance out of the way. When I did, eventually, find the hotel, it was very nice. So all was well.

I had booked a train to Hamburg for the next morning. I had no problem finding the right track, but the train was delayed about half an hour. I was a bit surprised at how many trains were running late. My train got into Hamburg about an hour late. I took a taxi to my hotel and was pleasantly surprised that they decided to give me Platinum benefits even though I only have Marriott Gold status. Mostly, that meant including breakfast. Overall, the Renaissance was a very nice place to stay and quite conveniently located. It was a short walk to several restaurants and shops and, more importantly, to an S-bahn / U-bahn station. I got supper the first evening at a nearby currywurst restaurant that even had a vegetarian option (and bison of all things). As proof that I had not really adjusted to the time zone, I failed to order beer with my meal, opting for soda.

Anyway, one of the major places I intended to see in Hamburg was the Auswanderemuseum BallinStadt (German Emigration Museum), which was a short S-bahn ride away. While many of the exhibits were only in German, I did remember enough of my high school German to get the gist of them. And there was enough English to make a useful supplement. I was particularly interested in the exhibits about Albert Ballin, who founded the Hamburg-America Line (HAPAG, which later merged with Lloyd and is still a major shipping company). The museum is located in what had originally been the Emigration Halls that his ocean liners left from. The museum also includes recordings (available in both German and English) that depict the experiences of emigrants. Unfortunately, one of them repeats the myth of people’s names being changed at Ellis Island, including the notorious “Sean Ferguson” story. (The story is that a Jewish man had his name changed but couldn’t remember what it had been changed to. So, when asked, he said “shayn fergessen” which is Yiddish for “I’ve already forgotten,” and his name became Sean Ferguson. The truth is that the immigration officials at Ellis Island never changed anybody’s names, because they just copied names from the passenger manifests and never took names themselves.) By the way, they also have a few computers set up to access the Hamburg passenger lists, but those just take you to Ancestry, which I can just as easily do at home.

Here’s a mock-up of a ship.



I can’t explain why they made the Statue of Liberty pink.



I went back to the center of Hamburg and went to a store called idee. This is, essentially, the German equivalent of Michael’s. I bought a cake of yarn, figuring it would give me something else to occupy myself on the cruise leg of my ship. And, of course, yarn bought in other countries is souvenir, not stash, so doesn’t count.

Then I walked back to my hotel, passing by the city hall. It still amuses me that the German for that is “rathaus.”



I’d picked up various brochures of things to do and, since I love modern art glass, opted for a trip on the U-bahn to the northern part of the city to go to the Achilles-Stiftung Glass Museum. It was a little confusing to find the entrance to it, largely because one of the signs had an arrow pointing the wrong way, but I found it and it proved to be quite spectacular. Here is a very small sampling of some of the best art glass I’ve seen anywhere.







After that, I attempted to go to the House of Photography (sort of near the central train station) but they were closed to set up for their next exhibit. Instead, I went to one of the modern art museums which had an exhibit called On the Origins of the 21st Century of the Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography. The most interesting thing there was a video called 33 Situations that had to do with sexual abuse of lesbians in the notorious Lubyanka prison (former KGB headquarters) in Moscow.

I only had one more day for sightseeing in Hamburg. I could have gone to the Kunsthalle, which is supposed to be an excellent art museum. Or I could have gone to Miniatur Wunderland, which includes the largest model railway system in the world and is, allegedly, the most popular tourist attraction in Germany. Instead, I chose to go to the Composers Quarter. This consists of a series of connected museums having to do with seven composers who lived or worked in Hamburg. The exhibits are largely in German, but they have booklets with English translation available to borrow. And their headphone system gives you a choice of German or English, as well as a lot of musical samples. Since I like baroque music, I spent a lot of time with Georg Philipp Telemann and almost as much with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, whose clavier they have (along with videos of it being played).



That didn’t leave me enough time for more than a glimpse at the material on Johann Adolf Hasse, Gustav Mahler, or the Mendelssohns (Fanny and Felix). There was a concert in the Brahms Museum and I listened to part of that, but there was a lot more lecture than actual performance. Overall, I spent roughly 4 1/2 hours there and, frankly, I could have spent twice as long. I recommend it highly to any music lovers who happen to find themselves in Hamburg.

One other thing I should note about Hamburg is that, even though I know better, I kept seeing signs saying “Hamburger” and thinking of the food, rather than the city I was in. I did actually get a burger for dinner my last night anyway.

I’ll write about the final leg of the trip in the next post.