Last week, Tony had work in Hamburg, Germany. Of course I joined him! When Tony set off for work that first morning, I had no real plan, but a quick search while at breakfast led me to something called St. Pauli Bunker. I laced up my shoes, turned on my maps and hit the streets. Honestly, I could just walk around cities in Europe and take in the architecture. I have a dozen pictures of buildings in Hamburg because I thought they were so pretty. I have no idea of their use! Well, except for the Rathaus...
I found it funny that the name of their
town hall looks a lot like "rat house"
After a few wrong turns (am I the only one capable of getting lost while using Maps?!), I reached St. Pauli Bunker...
A VERY brief description behind the St. Pauli Bunker:
It was built in 1942 as one of two flak towers in Hamburg to serve as anti aircraft defense and a shelter. It contained a hospital, stored ammunition and sheltered up to 30,000 Hamburg civilians, soldiers and government leaders. Interestingly enough, it was built with the help of about 2,400 "forced laborers" from areas of Europe occupied by Germany. Because of fuel shortage, these workers loaded heavy building supplies on to trucks and pushed them by hand to the construction site! After completion of the bunker, were they given use of the shelter? Nope!
They wanted to demolish all of the flak towers after the war. This one, though, was too massive and thick of concrete that they feared it would be too destructive to the surrounding areas if torn down. It served many purposes after the war, but just this past July, they opened a green space and five additional floors that were built on top of the existing bunker. There are restaurants and a hotel occupying these floors.
Back to my walk.....
Now remember, I just did a quick search at breakfast. I had no idea I would be climbing to the top of this structure. I just fell in line with the rest of the folks. The stairs wrapped around the side of the structure and at one point I realized how high I had gotten and could see below on both sides of the walkway. My heart started racing (I have a major fear of falling), my head got light and my ears started ringing. I took a deep breath and put one foot in front of the other until I finally reached the top....
I have to say that the views were amazing!
This area is underneath the hotel and restaurants.
The center area was the control center for the towers.
The stairs wrapped around AND AROUND the structure
Pretty sure this is the spot that I panicked...
While the St. Pauli Bunker was a cool experience, I prefer the architecture of the other random buildings I came across on my walk...
And anything on the water....
It was a quick, but wonderful trip! Next stop....Copenhagen
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