28 May: Super Hamburg

This was a day of superlatives. We started by visiting the amazing Elbphilharmonie. This post-modern concerthall, opened in 2016, is built on a podium of a eight-storey high brick warehouse standing above the harbour. On top of this brick monolith, a creation of rippling glass soars as high again, scalloped at the top like a breaking wave.

Inside is a state-of-the-art concert hall seating 2,100 people. Look it up on YouTube - especially the opening concert, synchronised with a sound-and-light show on the glass walls outside. It really is a jaw-dropper.

The public reaches the viewing platform which runs right around the building by riding the longest escalator/travelator in Europe. You then get amazing views of the port and city. This astonishing edifice is known to the locals as “Elphi”.

Next up was a harbour ferry ride. The port of Hamburg, the second-largest in Europe, is 110km from the sea, up the Elbe River.

Some statistics:
Founded: May 7, 1189
Land area: 43.31 km2 (16.72 sq mi)
Vessel arrivals: 9,681 (2013)
Annual revenue: €1.29 billion (2018)
Employees: 10,000 (2004)
Annual cargo tonnage: 145.7 million tonnes (2014)

I didn’t realise what a big deal it was until our ferry ride, which took us half an hour to traverse the main port area, and another half hour to return.

Cranes, liners, cargo ships of all shapes and sizes, ferries, tugs, dry-docks, historic vessels (lightship, icebreaker, a Russian Tango Class submarine, U-434, now a museum: the Port of Hamburg has them all. And always, on the horizon, is the Elbphilharmonie, towering over the waves like a sailing ship under full canvas.

After a quick dinner and wardrobe turnaround, we headed back into town (thanks again to Marie-Thérèse our endlessly patient train guide and taxi-driver).

Our destination was Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle. This handsome neo-Baroque concert hall was a gift to the city by a wealthy Hamburg shipowner and his wife in 1908. Miraculously it survived the horrendous Allied bombing raids that destroyed so much of the inner city.

Sir Andràs Schiff is one of the ten best pianists in the world today - and he was playing Haydn, and Brahms (born in Hamburg), with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. To hear him playing Brahms’ First Piano Concerto live was a whole new level of musical experience. I still have the melodies running through my head.

Superb musicianship and interpretation, plus the clearest acoustic I have ever heard. Every note was crystal-clear.

Absolutely worth coming all the way from New Zealand to see and hear.Read more