story and photos by Kayte Deioma
Hamburg, Germany is a gracious lady with her elegant architecture and posh shops along Jungferstieg. Waterfront cafes line the colonnade adjacent to the regal Town Hall, and swans glide gracefully across the Inner Alster Lake.
The grande dame also has a naughty side with her red light district known as the St. Pauli Reeperbahn, where the Beatles made their continental debut and the prostitutes are certified.
As one of the top 10 seaports in the world, the harbor, located 60 miles down the Elbe River from the North Sea, also plays a prominent role in the city’s personality. I was in town for the annual Hamburg Harbor Birthday celebration in May , which brings the whole population down to the waterfront, rain or shine.
It was sprinkling as I boarded the Loth Lorien to sail with the crew and assembled guests in the Parade of Ships opening the festivities on Friday afternoon. Despite the weather the hearty Hamburgers were out in full force crowding the harbor promenade at Landungsbruecken (Landing Bridges) to see the hundreds of marine vessels passing by.
My host ship was a three-masted schooner, built in 1907. A tarp kept the rain at bay and the galley staff plied us with hors d’oeuvres and fancy cocktails. Not content with the 
cocktail view, I donned my rain poncho and climbed up to the forward deck for a better look at the frigates, tall ships and riverboats parading across a backdrop of dramatic clouds. The sky cleared just in time to watch the fireworks display over the ships’ masts.
The continuing inclement weather did not stop the locals from coming out the next day to enjoy the 500 vendor booths and rides and multiple music stages stretching almost two miles from Landungsbrueken to Speicherstadt (the warehouse district). Being of less hearty stock, I chose to escape the rain and explore some of the Speicherstadt’s museums and indoor amusements.
Two of the big attractions are right next to each other. I skipped the long line for the Dungeon, which displays historic implements of torture, in favor of entering the fantasy world of Miniatur Wunderland. What started as a collection of model trains has become an intricately coordinated recreation of a condensed USA and Europe. Thousands of toy cars, 18 wheelers, buses and boats, as well as over 100 trains, are choreographed to move in and out of their international backdrops, stopping at signals and avoiding running into each other. The occasional scheduled crash raises a rapid response from mini emergency vehicles. Hundreds of thousands of inch-high people populate this diminutive world spread across multiple rooms on several floors.
A couple blocks away, the Speicherstadt Museum in an old coffee warehouse, displays some common implements of warehouse operation from hooks and scales to weights and barrels. Most of the exhibit focuses on the storage and transport of coffee beans, so it put me in the mood to enjoy a hot brew and a slice of homemade apple pecan coffee cake in their cafe.
At Spicy’s Spice Museum, curiosities like a model ship made of cloves from Indonesia are tucked among baskets of fresh herbs and spices, and information panels describing the harvesting of saffron and the proper care of cinnamon. A few panels are in English, but most of the text is only in German. The 
In the same building as Spicy’s, the Afghan Museum, is devoted to the history and culture of Afghanistan. The exhibits are very well presented, with life-size figures engaged in various traditions from cooking and drinking tea to weaving and shoemaking. Tableaus recreate rooms in Afghan homes in different parts of the country, and depict miniature landscapes. For a small space, they pack in an amazing amount of information and still have room for a gift shop and a tea alcove. Tea is included with admission.
It was still drizzling when I joined the hundreds of thousands of people who brought their umbrellas out to the harbor promenade to watch the world-famous Tugboat Ballet. The half-dozen chunky workboats dipped, bowed and pirouetted gracefully through a series of intricate maneuvers choreographed to a Viennese waltz piped through speakers along the riverbank.
Dinner followed aboard the museum ship SS Rickmer Rickmers. This full-rigged windjammer was built in 1896. After many incarnations it was restored and turned into a museum in 1987. The ship’s restaurant is open to the public 11 am to 6 pm, but I was there as an invited guest at the Captain’s Dinner, attended by the captains of the guest vessels participating in the festivities and a selection of debutantes and their dates in historic attire.
Away from the port, Hamburg has a myriad of other opportunities to escape the weather. In addition to an impressive array of world-class art and history museums, English tours of the Rathous (Town Hall) will take you through the ornate council chambers and banquet halls.
For shoppers, the new Europa Passage adds four stories of modern flair and architectural drama across the Innenalster from the classic Hamburg department stores and indoor retail corridors that weave through the blocks along Jungfernstieg.
For more things to do in Hamburg on a rainy day visit the Hamburg Rainy Day Links Page or visit Hamburg Tourism.
The 
you’re seeing. Every inch of available surface and wall space is used for display, with no room left for interpretive panels. Although the density gives it a bit of a cluttered feel, the exhibits are artfully arranged by theme.
In the first gallery, musical instruments like pre-Hispanic gourd rattles, rain sticks, primitive xylophones and drums of logs and gourds are arranged together on a platform of large adobe bricks. Hand-crafted stringed instruments from tortoise-shell, gourd and armadillo skin guitars to inlaid, painted and beaded instruments adorn the back wall.
The eagle, serpent and cactus from the Mexican flag are painted on ceramic plates and pots in the styles of different regions, carved from wood, beaded in bright patterns and laid out in mosaics in the political and patriotic exhibit.
Almost 300 masks cover the opposite wall from floor to ceiling – smooth or hairy animal masks, carved or paper Mache devils and demons, blond, blue-eyed Mardi Gras giants and theatrical characters, and calavera skull masks for Day of the Dead. Each genre shows representations from different parts of Mexico.
The tour continues into a larger gallery where you’re greeted by a mountain of gourd art piled atop an incredible network of tree roots. The versatile squash becomes bowls, urns, canteens, rattles and wind chimes. Some have simple line art, more are elaborately painted in varying styles, others are intricately beaded with tiny colored glass beads. Among the gourds and roots, wooden or woven snakes, alligators and turtles cavort.
A corner of a marketplace has been recreated to the right, with life-size figures of women in traditional garb selling clay pots, rice, eggs, dried beans, fruits, vegetables and other miscellaneous goods. A painted mural backdrop continues the scene into the distance.
Beyond the Purépecha home is a Puebla kitchen with counters and walls detailed with ornamental Talavera tiles and pottery from the region. The arched ceiling and alcoves reflect the Moorish influence Spanish settlers brought to the area. A stove, sink and limestone water filter are built into the counter. A rack of molinillos, carved wooden whisks used for frothing chocolate milk, hangs on a wall. Heart and bird-shaped stone mortar and pestle sets called molcajetes and a stone metate for grinding corn are on display. Beaten copper pots find homes on the stove, wall and suspended from the ceiling. The dinner table, with multicolored, hand-painted chairs, is laden with representations of typical foods and tableware.
A nativity exhibit uses tree stumps as pedestals for dozens of crčches in different artistic styles from around Mexico, from tiny sets you could hold in the palm of your hand to three-foot ceramic figures. The holy family is represented as European, Mexican or Indiginous people, from monochrome to multihued, in materials including clay, tin, wood, sea shells, straw, papier-Mâché, fabric, beads and wire.
Other religious symbols include crucifixes made of everything from roots and branches to bottle caps, brightly colored or naturally toned churches, angels and Virgin of Guadalupe figures. A recreated chapel is populated with a life-size congregation of fiberglass citizens modeled from real people representative of the various indigenous groups in Mexico. Each is clothed in appropriate regional attire.
On the altar, Jesus is suspended within the wood frame outline of a cross, backed by dozens of tin luminarias. The cross is flanked on either side by elaborate hand-painted clay “Trees of Life” that each consist of hundreds of individual characters and details telling a particular life story. One incredible Tree of Life by Tiburcio Soteno tells the life story of a skeleton character with all his skeletal family and friends, from birth through marriage and death. Another is filled with mermaids surrounded by hundreds of vibrantly colored fish and other sea creatures.
A final side gallery is devoted to toys. Dolls and clay figures, mechanical toys and games, doll houses and miniature musical instruments, toy trucks, cars and buses piled high with produce on top, are all a delight to the eye. On one side, a girl has lined up all her dolls on toy chairs to watch her brother put on a puppet show.
The audio tour is 45 minutes if you listen to it straight through, but I found myself stopping the tape often to spend more time admiring the examples of different styles of craftsmanship in each exhibit. Once you’ve finished the tour, the gift shop is choc full of the work of some of the best folk artists from around the country. It’s worth a little extra time to explore, even if you are not buying, because most things are really one of a kind art works (even if there are variations) rather than replicas of pieces in the museum.
At one end of the mall is 
A great place for the whole family is 
them to Kukulkids, a great children’s center on the 2nd floor of the mall. It includes separate play areas for babies and bigger kids, an inflated maze, a games and crafts area, a kid-size movie theatre, a mini-climbing wall and a sit and scoot race track where kids wheel themselves around the track on low hand carts. For the best of both worlds, let your kids stay and play under the supervision of trained child-care staff, while you hit the shops.