Student rooms in Germany : Inside Hamburg
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A bit of history
The name Hamburg refers to the first permanent building which was build on the location of the city.
The name Hamburg consists out of ‘Ham’ and ‘burg’ although the name ‘Ham’ is not really explained as yet, (there are various possible explanations) the name burg is the German word for ‘fortress’. The reason the fort was build was to stand up to attacks from Slavic Incursions.
The city has know a lot of disasters and furious attacks. In 845 a fleet of 600 Viking ships came up the river Elbe and destroyed the at the time 500 inhabitants counting city completely.
In 1030 the king of Poland burned the entire city down and after even more attacks in 1066 and 1072 the city’s bishop moved permanently to the safer city of Bremen.
In the 15th century Hamburg was a place for Dutch and French protestant refugees. During the time of Napoleon the city suffered heavily from his campaigns in and in 1842 the city fell victim to a immense fire destroying a big part of the city.
Hamburg grew the fastest during the second half of the nineteenth century. During that time the population increased by four times up to 800.000. In both the world wars Hamburg suffered as well but nowadays Hamburg is a beautiful, vibrating city.
Shopping in Hamburg
Hamburg has a big variety of stores, shops and boutiques.
In general, stores are open Monday to Friday 9am to 6:30pm (some until 8pm Thurs) and on Saturday 9am to 2pm (until 4 or 6pm on langer Samstag, the first Sat of the month). Unfortunately, the interesting shops are not concentrated in one location. Two of the oldest and most prestigious shopping streets, Grosse Bleichen and Neuer Wall, run parallel to the canals, connected transversely by Jungfernstieg and Ufer Strasse on the Binnenalster. Of course there are a lot more interesting stores and streets to explore, but the best thing to do is to find out for yourself by strolling down the streets with your classmates or colleague you meet during your study or internship in Hamburg.
Parks and sights of Hamburg
Listed below you’ll find a few of the parks in Hamburg.
The alster lakes.
This park houses a great beautiful lake. Its grassy fields and beautiful vegetation make this park really outstanding for a relaxing day of or a beautiful place to study.
Old Botanical Gardens (Alter Botanischer Garten)
A beautiful garden with lots of rather unusual vegetation for German standards. The park is very beautiful and therefore very popular under the local inhabitants. This park suits perfectly for an afternoon walk. One you’ll see a lot here are people running or cycling.
Eichtalpark
This park in the Wandsbek district has a long history. Once a company owner from Hamburg planted oaks here, because he needed the oak bark to tan skins for his leather products. That was back in the 18th Century - in the meantime the formerly privately owned park, which used to be part of the Wandsbek estate, has become public greens. Its ponds are maintained, supplied and fished by local angling societies. The Alster bicycle trail also leads through this quiet and picturesque landscape along the Wandse brook. You can get some rest from the daily strain here and look at typical marsh and aquatic plants.