Sundays in Germany are usually very low key and kind of boring.  A lot of places are closed.  There is no shopping to be done because retail stores aren’t open.  You may find some open restaurants, but by and large, it’s pretty dead in a lot of places.  Hamburg does have one special thing they do on Sundays… that is the Fischmarkt.

The sign… lots of empty liquor bottles near it.

Seagulls were helping to clean up the debris…  They were everywhere.  It was kind of disgusting.

During the warmer months, it starts at 5:00am and goes until 9:30am.  In colder months, it’s from 7:00am until 9:30am.  You can find fish, produce, clothes, and even music there.  As we were walking toward the fish market, we even felt like we were back in San Antonio, as there were a bunch of dark haired guys who could have been Mexicans playing very loud salsa music and dancing to it.  I had quite the flashback.

As we walked toward the market, I found plenty of photo ops, including one building that had “Je suis Charlie” in every window, political ads, and ads for upcoming shows.

Je suis Charlie!

I think this was some kind of bar.  There was a menu posted by the door.

Might have to get back to Hamburg for that Mark Knopfler concert.  It’s right around my birthday in June!

I’ve seen this posted in other cities, too…  I noticed a lot of signs about immigration and a lot of anti Islam political posters.

Sadly, Bill and I didn’t get there in time for most of the action.  We got up kind of late, went to Starbucks for breakfast, and then walked the three miles from our hotel to the market.  By the time we got there, they were breaking everything down.  We did, however, manage to catch the last twenty minutes of a band called Curtain Call performing in the market itself.  I was glad to go in there just to find a bathroom, which took some doing to locate because it was on the second floor and the stairs were behind a curtained off area.

Curtain Call performs in Hamburg!

After successfully finding the bathroom, we enjoyed a beer while watching the last of Curtain Call’s final set.  They were a pretty good cover band and it was fun to watch the folks dancing.  There were people of all ages and some had come decked out in costumes with wigs and everything.  It was a civilized but fun party and we really enjoyed it, even though we were very late getting there.

Expensive but tasty…

Wine bar near the market… 

Inside the market. It was very clean and pleasant.

At noon, the market closed down.  We were going to walk back along the harbor, but then I noticed signs for the Reeperbahn.  I had read a little about that part of Hamburg, so I decided I wanted to see it.  We walked up some stairs and were soon in a very sexually explicit part of Hamburg where there were head shops, sex clubs, and adult movie theaters aplenty.  In a weird way, it reminded me of Key West, though not as quaint, hot, or clean.

More filthy seagulls.

The Reeperbahn and the Saint Pauli section of Hamburg were great places to get photos.  I had some fun walking around as snow flurried around us, snapping shots of things I don’t see every day.  Bill gets a little nervous in places like that, though, so we didn’t stay too long.  Besides, the weather was still frigid.  We walked back to the Rathaus area via the Reeperbahn.

I saw the same thing spray painted on a building in Dresden back in 2008.

Entrance for men under age 18 and women prohibited!

Bill is truly the king of something… though it’s doubtful that it’s St. Pauli.

Jesus lives!  Even in places like St. Pauli!

No tell motel?

The cops warn against drinking too much, lest you look like the young man above.

Condoms?  And then have some Chinese food after a romp between the sheets.

The things you see posted on light posts.

I think people must rub her finger for good luck.  It’s polished a lot more than the rest of her is.