Metal and non-metal things to do in Hamburg

[Iron Aiden]

Good to see you all again.

Get your tour guide hats on again!

Spending NYE there and wondering if anyone has any recommendations?

[astfgyl]

Reeperbahn is said to be beautiful at this time of year

[Juggz]

I was there in October for a few days and the temperature was in the mid-20s so usually spent the days wandering around drinking those cans of Captain Morgan Mojitos. They're 10% over there and a great way to get any evening off to a flyer.

In terms of things to do, it was largely flattened during the war so there's not much in the way of old town charm. There are a couple of interesting museums I went to - the U-boat museum which I really enjoyed, you get to go through the innards of a real Soviet sub - https://www.hamburg.com/museums/u434/    There are guided tours, not sure if there are any in English but if you have any level of German you'll get the gist. If not, it's still worth visiting.

There's also a good museum in the basement of the ruins of St. Nikolai's Cathedral which I thought offered a very interesting insight to the German perspective of WWII - https://www.hamburg.com/sights/places-of-worship/st-nikolai/   You can also go up to a viewing platform in the ruined tower. Everything is in English and German.

I had gigs lined up for every night I was there, so can't really offer anything in the way of metal pubs or clubs but, of the venues I went to, the ones where I'd suspect you'll find a metal or punk event are Logo on Grindelallee - https://www.logohamburg.de/ and Hafenklang on Grosse Elbstrasse - https://www.hafenklang.com/programm.html

It's a great town to get around, the U-Bahn runs every 5 minutes up to 9pm and every 10 minutes after that. It's handy enough to just wander around too.

Reeperbahn is a fucking sleaze pit filled with junkies and prossies. If that rocks yer boat, you know where to go. If not, you're not going to miss anything by avoiding it. At the back of the Reeperbahn you'll find St. Pauli's stadium and, just beyond that, a massive concrete flak tower built by the Nazis in 1943 and impossible to destroy. It's worth seeing just for the headfuck of it all. https://www.tracesofwar.com/sights/1681/Flakturm-IV-G-Tower-Heiligengeistfeld-Flak-tower.htm

All in all, it's not a feast for the eyes but a very decent place to visit all the same. The people I met were invariably sound.

I'm going to take a wild guess and assume you're not too interested in vegan restaurants?

[Iron Aiden]

Cheers for that.

What are the vegan restaurants? I tried to be a vegetarian and failed miserably so no harm to know

[Juggz]

Happenpappen, right across the road from the flack tower on Feldstrasse, do a very filling line of burgers. There's a good record/cd shop, Zardoz Records, around the corner on Marketstrasse too.

Apple & Eve on Schanzenstrasse are open all day and pretty good too. There's also a dedicated falafel place on the same street called Falafelstern which were really good.

There's a curry place called Golden Temple Teehaus on Grindelallee, across the road from Logo which is supposed to be very good but I never saw it open.

Mamalicious on Max-Brauer-Allee do amazing breakfasts but it gets very busy very quickly. I never got to try an evening meal there.

If you're a cat person, there's Cafe Katzentempel on Kleiner Schaferkamp who do a very decent breakfast. There are a load of rescue cats who live in the restaurant and wander around pissed off that you don't have meat to give them.

Aside from that, there are a load of Turkish kebab places who sell good falafel. There's also a chip wagon outside the Hauptbahnhof which is a little pricey but fucking deadly.

It's a decent place for record shopping too. Aside from Zardoz, I found five really good ones just by wandering around aimlessly but there are loads more. I wasn't intending on buying any CDs but came bag with a bag full. There are loads of them around the city centre, probably more than in the whole of this island.

Oh yeah, there's also an English language cinema called the Savoy on Steindamm, just a couple of minutes walk away from the Hauptbahnhof, a handy option if you have a rainy day. They serve beer.

And, if it's your first time, there's a train link every 15 minutes from the airport to the Hbf for €3.30. Just follow the signs with the white S in the green circle at the airport.