Hamburg, 2012

This is a very rich place because almost its entire old inner city is packed with luxury shopping, where you would normally have no need to go – unless you were a rich tourist from a place where fake designer gear is rife and you want to ensure you got the real thing – but it is packed every day with locals and tourists alike, plus an assortment of beggars, street musicians and performers and lads sleeping off a hard night.
Hamburg has a proud past and is obviously quite self-assured as befits a trading city which has more in common with its overseas counterparts than its own hinterland. Its flag is a solid castle tower on a red field and is flown everywhere. It is a separate state in the German federation and has a long tradition of being independent minded.
Its port is vast and, as everywhere, following the ancient example of Brugge, its old docks and warehouses have been redeveloped into des-res housing, offices, shops and cafes.

The waterside architecture is stark, utilitarian and solid. Hamburg is not a romantic city, but it is quite beautiful. The old town ramparts have been transformed into a ring belt park, with botanic gardens and sprinkled with many water features in the old moats.
The city is so compact we used the bus only once and never got on the U or S Bahn. Everything we wanted to see and visit we could reach on foot and pedestrianized areas and streets abound. It makes for pleasant inner city living, but of course the vast bulk of the population lives in the suburbs.
We stayed in a gay homestay, hosted by Dietmar and Thomas, and which was a spacious loft apartment in the St Georg district, a few minutes’ walk from the Central station and also right in the middle of the gay community. On Pentecost weekend the main street was blocked off and given over to a three-day street fair and flea market, with performances, food and drink stalls and a dance party area. It was a multi-coloured, multi-cultural and multi-sexual event and was extremely popular with the locals.
The food was lovely, especially recommended is café Traum Zeit (Hansaplatz), owned and run by a New Zealander from Hastings.
Culturally speaking, Hamburg has a fine array of art on offer. The Kunsthalle (next to the main train station) houses renaissance and modern paintings and sculpture in a sprawling and rather confusing-to-navigate site. The Bucerius Art Forum (next to the town hall) has temporary modern art exhibitions: a photographic social history of New York City was moving, wide ranging and interesting. The Art and Design Museum had a vast collection of basically everything, from Islamic art, 17^th Century merchant traders’ interiors, “decadent art” archaeological finds, Roman pottery, an exhibition on German rocker Udo Lindenberg, deco furniture and a tribute exhibition to fashion designer Alexander MacQueen.

In the Deichtorhallen, British artist Antony Gormley showed “Horizon Field”, a free participatory installation, where you climb up 7.5 metres to a suspended 2,500 square metre flat surface hung from 8 steel cables. The movement of people on the field make it sway horizontally, which makes for an unsettling experience, especially since the surface is covered in a shiny resin which reflects you into a black depth.

My main original reason to visit Hamburg was Miniatur Wunderland, a huge miniature world full of trains, planes and moving cars set in various countries and landscapes. It’s obviously a labour of love and a big team makes sure everything moves, crashes are repaired, rolling stock is maintained and visitors have a delightful time exploring all the details. The biggest fun is to search for small, mysterious scenes in the landscapes and around which you can spin your own story of what is actually happening.

Consumer Guide for the Sexually Active Hamburg Guy

When you travel to Hamburg, I recommend you stay at Thomas & Dietmar's homestay on Hansaplatz in the St Georg district of the city, a stone's throw away from Hamburg's main train station. A very warm welcome, all the information you need and a 3-minute walk to all the venues listed below.

S.L.U.T Club (Rostocker Strasse 20, St Georg): A corner bar in the multicultural and multi-sexual district St Georg. Rainbow flags abound here and you cannot miss the open atmosphere welcoming gay men in the neighbourhood. The Slut Club is prominently sited on the crossroads of two streets. No need to go looking for obscure entrances down back alleyways.
Open Wednesdays to Sundays with themed nights it caters for the non-vanilla crowd, which as usual in Germany means: sports gear, leather, rubber and skinheads (or just go in your birthday suit and you never violate the dress code). Sundays have monthly themes such as fisting or watersports.
The bar area is roomy and easy to start a chat with the locals. The scene in Hamburg is a little smaller than Berlin so many punters know each other and treat the venue as a meeting place too. The staff are very friendly, multi-lingual and efficient.
There are two cruise areas, one with a maze and a sling, the other with two slings. On Saturday nights the basement is also open to handle the overflow of punters (it features a bath tub too). There are two porn screens, usually showing footage of the theme night to bring you in the mood.
My major gripe is (as always) the amount of tobacco smoking that goes on inside. Being used to years of officially enforced non-smoking laws it is hard on your eyes and lungs. But nobody seems to mind, even when pointing it out.

Your intrepid reporter at the SLUT Club.

Contact Bar (Danziger Strasse 51, St Georg): Another corner bar, but smaller than Slut Club. It also appeals to a broader gay clientele, what with quiz nights and beer busts. It's closed on Mondays and has occasional theme parties on other days.
I've only been to the naked night and a good time was had by all as far as I could see. It's quite chatty too. Quite a few people turn up with their partner, it seems.
There is one porn screen, plus a small cruising backroom, which can get a bit cramped at times.
At midnight the theme ends and clothed people started to appear, which is a little disconcerting for the naked romeos still left. I mentioned this anomaly to the owner, who, as usual, shrugged.

Tom's Saloon (Pulverteich 17, St Georg): One of the longest established gay bars in Hamburg but it doesn't look too tired as it has changed venues in the past.
It's a basement bar kitted out with macho paraphernalia (the bar is supposedly held up by a series of heavy chains hanging from the ceiling) and Tom of Finland imagery, which isn't really my cup of tea. But you can ignore all that and concentrate on the rest of the venue.
There is usually a strict fetish dress code, except on Mondays when it's 2-4-1 drinks night without dress code and with free entry. So cheap beers and all the meat you can eat in the long narrow backroom, which is quite under-lit and features one sling. I could not see any condom availability and, again, smoking is prevalent everywhere.
The anteroom of the backroom has a huge circular table at shoulder height, which (I presume, it didn't happen when I visited) could function as a stage for sexual shenanigans.
A lovely feature is the urinals, which are situated in a circle around a pole so all the pissers can basically watch each other easily.
The one person staff was efficient and attentive, and there were two porno screens.