Hamburg: Speicherstadt – A UNESCO World Heritage Site

// Sponsored post – In collaboration with Hamburg Tourism //

Speicherstadt in Hamburg is the world’s largest warehouse area and earlier this year, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In case you didn’t know, UNESCO is an agency under the United Nations and the purpose of UNESCO is to promote international collaboration within fields such as education and culture including the identification and preservation of the World Heritage sites. 

There are only a little more than 1000 sites listed around the world today, so it’s still a pretty big thing for a city to have a World Heritage site. Speicherstadt is a part of the HafenCity area, where I was staying, and Friday afternoon, I went on a guided tour in the area.

Speicherstadt was originally built as a free zone, and in addition to just looking good, some of the buildings in Speicherstadt still function as warehouses. Apparently, the constant temperature inside the warehouses is great for storage of carpets and rugs, and I saw a lot of Persian carpet wholesalers along the way. I was told that the price of the carpets in Speicherstadt are typically selling for up to 20% less than in the stores downtown.

Speicherstadt dates back to the late 19^th century, but during World War II, many of the buildings were destroyed. Some of them were rebuilt with respect to the area’s distinct style and if it weren’t because the guide pointed out some of the newer buildings to me, I would have thought they all were of the same age.

It was such a beautiful place to walk around in during daytime, so one evening I decided to walk from the Rathaus Station and back to the hotel through Speicherstadt, as I wanted to see what the area was like after dark.

It was very dark and it was very quiet. Even though I never felt unsafe in the sense that I was afraid to get assaulted or robbed, the place still managed to scare the guts out of me. The spookiness all came from the dim lighting and the completely deserted streets. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Dracula, a zombie army or Ozzy Osbourne around the next corner.

At some point the bells at St. Catherine’s Church nearby started tolling too. That was when I started walking really fast. If you plan to visit Hamburg, Speicherstadt is definitely a must-see, but go there during daytime or bring your Ghostbuster friends..

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