Arriving into Hamburg was certainly something of a surprise to the system.
For starters, we arrived on a beautiful yet freezing cold day (after spending almost a month in over 30C temperatures in the Maldives and Sri Lanka), then there was how beautiful and ‘shiny’ the city looked, all prepped up for Christmas…
… and to top things off was the amazing two bedroom suite we had at the Renaissance Hotel!
This was a suite and a half!
Grand piano in the living area, Bulgari in the bathrooms, enough space to fit into London-sized apartments, cute espresso machines at every turn, Hanseatic art in every nook and cranny… the list goes on and on.
I think we spent a legit 30 minutes or so running around the place in awe of how amazing (and how huge) it was.
Oh yeah, I haven’t even said why we were visiting Hamburg! Well, seeing as it was Christmas time and hence the Christmas markets were in full swing, we were invited over by Eurowings to join in on the Christmas festivities in Hamburg (and by festivities, I mean eat EVERYTHING IN SIGHT at the Christmas markets).
*By the way, we’re in a video filmed by Eurowings! If you’ve got a couple of seconds to spare, check it out here.
After a few hours at the hotel, we headed off to 20up Bar to catch the sunset over the harbour and make the most of the golden hour with a coffee/cocktail or two.
The view from up here is incredible, by the way! It’s definitely the perfect place to catch the sunset and some of the best city vistas in the city.
Drinks over and done with, we headed off in search of our first Christmas market of the year (and perhaps one of the sauciest), Santa Pauli Christmas market.
Santa Pauli is smack bang in the red light district area of Hamburg and is one of the most popular markets to visit as its adults only (though to be fair, apart from the one stall at the end selling wooden dildos), it feels very much like every other Christmas market (sans the Disco ball right in the centre… and a random sign you can see across the road from the market for €39.99 sexy times).
We wasted no time whatsoever in hitting the gluhwein stand with Thomas (an amazing instagrammer @themodernleper– seriously, he take and edits all his instagrams on his phone and it would easily beat any photos most people would take on professional cameras and edit with professional tools).
There’s also lots to eat here but I quickly got distracted by one of my favourite things about German Christmas markets – candied nuts! (Pretty sure there’s a different German name for them…)
I hurriedly stuffed my camera bag with nuts (not even sure why I hurriedly did so – the nuts weren’t going anywhere), while juggling a couple of glasses of gluhwein (one spiked with amaretto), making the most of the Christmas cheer!
Next up – Hamburg’s biggest and grandest Christmas market – Rathaus Christmas market. But more on that in the next post! 🙂
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