Hamburg Christmas market

It's tradition: Audrey, Jana, Sarah and I travel for 3-4 days in the Christmas period to some place in Germany to visit our traditional Christmas markets, get our annual ratio of "Glühwein", stuff us with as much delicious, local and typical food as possible, get some shopping done, do the necessary sightseeing and have a great time together.
In 2011 we were in Munich, in 2012 we discovered Leipzig and now in 2013 we checked out Hamburg.

Here some pictures:

Our ho(s)tel "Superbude" (literally translates as "super place/digs): perfectly well located and yes, simply a cool, super "Bude" :-)

 

From the Christmas market(s): one day we also met our friend and former colleague/trainee Moritz with his girlfriend Anne who were living in Hamburg now.

The St. Pauli Christmas market at the famous Reeperbahn - the little bit different/alternative kind of Christmas market in the red-light district:

here they do not only have pink Christmas trees...

...here you also find rather non-classical Christmas market items.

The "Speicherstadt" (litterally the city of warehouses) is the largest warehouse district in the world where the buildings stand on timber-pile foundations. It was built from 1883 to 1927 and is located in the port of Hamburg, 1.5 km long and pervaded by loading canals. The district was built as a free zone to transfer goods without paying customs.

St. Michael's (colloquially called Michel) is one of Hamburg's five Lutheran main churches  and the most famous church in the city. The Michel is a landmark of the city. The 132-metre high Baroque spire totally covered with copper is a prominent feature of Hamburg’s skyline and has always been a landfall mark for ships sailing up the river Elbe.

 

 

And somewhere around Hamburg city.

We certainly didn't have the greatest weather, but it was certainly fantastic to be with "my" girls again :-)
Jana, Audrey, Sarah: I'm looking forward to our next Christmas market trip!!!