I wonder
how bad the weather in Hamburg (talking about the famous harbour town in
northern Germany) really is and after a quick research I learn that the
accumulated hours of sunshine for the month of July in Hamburg were 202.4. This
is pretty similar to the amount of sunshine on the highest mountain in Germany,
the Zugspitze. I also find out that the hype about Berlin
is as big as the hours of sunshine. The capital of Germany experienced a whopping
236.4 hours of sunshine in the month of July. And while we are at it, Munich is
most certainly Germany's trophy-town for a reason. The glitterati could get an
even deeper tan while enjoying a breathtaking 292.6 hours of sunshine during
the month of July.
You see,
everybody heard that the weather in Hamburg isn’t perfect. The Hamburgers know
quite well that the rest of the world (I might be slightly exaggerating here)
is aware of it and they respond to all comments about the weather wryly.
Standing
in the soft spray of rain, at the starting point of a cultural food tour in the
Hamburg borough of Sternschanze I ask a fellow guest: “What happened to the
summer?” He looked at me with a face as straight as a TV tower. “Summer? That
was yesterday.”
It was in
that instant that I knew I had a few good hours ahead of me. We all know there
is no such thing as bad weather but only the wrong clothes. In the hours to
come I hear great stories and meet an interesting bunch of people and I soon
forget the rain ...
The
Sternschanze in Hamburg Altona
In 1937
the German Nazi regime enlarged Hamburg with simply including former Prussian
towns, and one of them was Altona. Today the town has got a bit over 100
boroughs, and the Sternschanze, as a part of the administrative district of
Altona, has been created as recent as March 2008. The Sternschanze is an area
with a lot of nightlife and cafes and restaurants but also with independent
book-, chocolate-, and shoe stores. Sounds rosy right, but as in almost
everywhere in the world, gentrification is well on its way, and in the course
of it many small store owners are forced to leave because they can’t afford to
pay their rent anymore.
In the
centre of the Schanzenviertel is the Rote Flora. You wonder where this name
comes from? For more than half a century the Flora was one of the best
addresses in Germany when it came to cabaret and operetta. It later was
converted into a cinema and after that into a hardware store called 1,000 Töpfe
(1,000 saucepans in English). That store had been founded in 1949 by a
self-made entrepreneur who began with making saucepans from English aircraft
sheet. Later that store moved into another area of Hamburg but customers
started to demand the cheap online prices, and since that wasn't doable the
hardware store had to close its doors after 64 years.
Investors
planned to show a musical at the Flora but failed in the protest and resistance
in the Schanzenviertel. That was the time when the Flora became The Rote Flora,
and over the last 25 years it has been a place of subculture and of
non-commercial activities. The colour red stands for passion and determination,
and is also a symbol of antifascism and resistance. The squatters actively show
resistance whenever investors want to change the Flora to commercialize it. So
far they have done an excellent job. No one knows what would have happened to
the Sternschanze if that big musical production and all visitors and tour buses
would have arrived.
It seems
that Rote Flora’s neighbour the Kilimanschanzo, Hamburg's climbing mountain,
looks at all of this patiently. It is not really a mountain, but an old bunker.
The Kilimanschanzo helps to keep the Flora Park lively. Young people in the
Schanzenviertel benefit from it as a meeting place.
You see,
there is a lot going on here in this borough. It is funny (in a very peculiar
way) isn’t it? People long to live in a nice community and dream of speciality
stores but not many understand that store owners need money to make a living.
The store owners I speak to in the Schanzenviertel all feel the urge to do something for their small businesses as well as for the development of their borough. This is a rare attitude in this homogenised world we live in. When I look around me these days I see lots of figures happily running through this world in their trainers, only talking to people who have more than 100,000 followers on YouTube and eating burgers in expensive fast food joints, strongly believing that that is what makes them proper nonconformists. Why not become truly community-minded? Visit the Sternschanze and train your ability to perceive. There are many things to think about.
The store owners I speak to in the Schanzenviertel all feel the urge to do something for their small businesses as well as for the development of their borough. This is a rare attitude in this homogenised world we live in. When I look around me these days I see lots of figures happily running through this world in their trainers, only talking to people who have more than 100,000 followers on YouTube and eating burgers in expensive fast food joints, strongly believing that that is what makes them proper nonconformists. Why not become truly community-minded? Visit the Sternschanze and train your ability to perceive. There are many things to think about.
Eat the World in the borough of Schanzenviertel
It is easy and affordable to have lunch at a cheesemonger instead of
buying food at one of the giant fast-food outlets. Eat at specialty stores and support the community. Many of these stores and
small restaurants in the area are open from as early as 7am and open till
midnight so that people can come together to eat at communal tables while
sitting on beer garden benches.
Don’t
expect to eat “that” German dish since in the present day Germany there
is no such thing. Germany is a pretty open-minded society and has been the home
of lots of immigrants from all over the world for many decades. Everybody
brought their traditions and cooking style with them and today it is all part
of the German culture.
Taste the vanilla in the Portuguese custard tart together with a Galão (one-quarter of espresso and three quarters foamed milk) in a cozy Portuguese Café on one of the busiest streets in the borough of Sternschanze. Taste the coriander in the falafel while marvelling at the architecture of a row of three-storey terrace homes built in the backyards of the upper-class during the founder period to accommodate factory workers, artisans and servants. Taste the freshness of the handmade vegetarian pasta with rucola (in the USA it is called arugula) in an old abattoir of Hamburg. Taste the melt in your mouth softness of the puff pastry with tomatoes and olives at a cafe which had been previously used as a butcher. Taste that famous potato salad plus curry-sauce in a tiny snack bar with a long history.
Experience the enriching influence of different nationalities and enjoy the fact that everything is prepared by chefs from all over the world. You will soon understand the diversity of the German society.
 |
| Store specialised in tea and all things sweet - and look at the floor |
As a cultural purist, this is what I really want from travelling. See and understand how locals live. And to me travelling is often all about the food. I was a guest of eat-the-world but I obviously maintain full editorial control of the content published in this article. You better leave your preconceptions about greasy hash browns or lifeless and overcooked kale (traditional German staple foods ... no one needs) at home and just eat the world in Germany. After the tour with Claudia I had a pretty good understanding of how life in the Sternschanze works, and needless to say I was happy I had worn my rain jacket, really, herrings swam past me at eye level for most of the time.
From
Berlin with love