This yearly event is called “Die Lange Nacht der Museen”, which can be freely translated into “Museums all night long”. Here you can visit 42 museums in Hamburg for a one-time fee of 12 euros (approx. 16 US dollars), including the buses that take you from one museum to another.  It’s a great bargain, considering the regular entrance fee for a museum alone is around 7 euros in average.

The thing is, the visiting hours are only between 6 pm and 2 am. Outside these hours the ticket is not valid. So, I don’t think anybody can visit all 42 museums in 8 hours. Even then, this event is still too good to be passed by. This year, the event took place last Saturday, May 16th 2009.

Getting into the bus

A friend named Camila and I started at exactly 6 pm at the main station. With a bus, we went to our first museum “Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte” (History of Hamburg Museum).  We chose this museum because Camila has been living in Hamburg for almost all of her life and I’ve been for 4 years, and we didn’t know that much about our city.

There we learned how some streets got their names, how Hamburg was built, and which persons played important roles in it. The museum was so big that we got lost on our way out for about 20 minutes! On our way out, there was a small fashion show from Hamburg designers. Because fashion show is not our thing, we just stayed for another 5 minutes and decided to go on to another museum.

Around 7:30 pm we were already in front of “Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe” (Museum of Arts and Industry). In that museum there was a tribute to Loriot, a great German comedian in 60s, 70s and 80s. The walls on the gallery were full of his funny quotes, such as:

Infants have to be taught how to watch TV because later on it’s going to be the only thing they know.

There were also clips from his TV shows and cartoons, that made us laugh until our stomachs hurt.

A tribute to Loriot

From there we continued to the next Museum “Deichtorhallen - Haus der Photographie” (Deichtorhallen - House of Photography). Another tribute was also going on here. This time it was to Herbert Tobias, a German photographer, whose pictures mainly show the situation and the people in Berlin and Paris from just after world war II to 1960s. Most of his pictures are in black and white, and with male models. It was because of his love of men. His homosexuality was a big controversy at that time, because he openly lived it.

After visiting 3 museums nonstop, we decided to have a break at around 9:45 pm. A currywurst with bread for 3 euros and a glass of coke (or beer) for 2.50 euros from a special tent outside the Deichtorhallen museum were quite affordable considering the event and the place. Sitting on a bench with a currywurst and a drink on our hands, plus a live jazz music coming from the tent in our ears, made us stay for another 30 minutes.

But it was getting late, and we wanted to visit at least one more museum. 5-10 Minutes later we were already at the “Prototyp“, a car museum. There we learned the evolution of auto model and industry from the beginning of 1900s to 1950s in Germany.

An auto in Prototyp museum

We were already tired after this museum, but it was a little after 12 am and we pushed ourselves thinking we could visit another one before we called it a day. We made it to “Hamburger Rathaus” (Hamburg City Hall). It’s actually not a museum, but there you can see where mayor and parliament of Hamburg work, and the interior of the building, that was originally built in 1200s.

As we got there, there was a live jazz music going on in the hall, so we decided to enjoy it a little bit. The music was so smooth and relaxing that some people actually fell asleep.

Jazz music in the city hall

This small concert lasted until 1 am and we reluctantly had to go.

At the end of this wonderful day, Camila and I had a little drink at a cozy Irish pub called Finnegan’s Wake, and we got to have a chat with the owner. A typical Irish pub owner, friendly but quite talkative.

Some links to Hamburg museums (some available only in German):

• Astronomiepark Hamburger Sternwarte (Astronomy Park)
• Kl!ck Kindermuseum (Kl!ck Children Museum)
  
• Rickmer Rickmers (Rickmer Rickmers - the ship museum)
• more museums in Hamburg