16 Christmas markets, a flying Santa, Christmas parades and more… why Hamburg is the place to celebrate the festivities

16 Christmas markets, a flying Santa, Christmas parades and more… why Hamburg is the place to celebrate the festivities

Colourful, lively, maritime, and Hanseatic: it’s this special time of year when Hamburg demonstrates its quality as a destination.

Christmas in Hamburg’s city centre: a stroll from market to market

With as many as 16 Christmas markets across the city, Hamburg invites visitors to take a festive stroll and explore the different quarters of town.

Start your Christmas tour at the Historic Christmas Market by the Roncalli Circus, hosted in the heart of the city just outside the town hall. Featuring 80 merchants and artisans in a nostalgic setting, this market takes you back in time, with classic toys, traditional woodcarvings as well as organic gingerbread and mulled wine served from historic carts. Three times a day you can turn your gaze upwards as Father Christmas himself can be seen riding his sleigh above the Christmas market. Just around the corner, the White Magic market captivates visitors with its sea of lights and its lovely location on the Inner Alster Lake, which houses the beautifully decorated Christmas tree in the middle of the lake.

The gingerbread village at the Gänsemarkt is a delight to behold. During the Advent season, the entire square is transformed into an idyllic little village of gingerbread houses. Just around is one of North Germany’s most exclusive shopping districts which features many flagship stores of designer brands, perfect for last minute Christmas shopping. Hamburg’s main shopping street, the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Platz square awaits visitors with its Winterfrost market. The little forest made of real fir trees is the perfect Christmas-themed selfie spot. Right next to the square, the colourful Hamburg Christmas parades set off to spread the joy of Christmas ­– on each Saturday during the Advent season at 2 pm and 5 pm.

Maritime Christmas in Hamburg: markets on the water

The port of Hamburg is the place to go for maritime Christmas markets. At Landungsbrücken, four Scandinavian Christmas bazaars will open. The Nordic Christmas Markets offer an authentic Nordic atmosphere, with traditional delicacies and regional specialities from Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark.

Christmas Market at St Michaelis Church first took place in 1922 and Hamburg’s oldest Christmas market has long become an integral part of Christmas for Hamburg’s locals. Over 100 craft stalls in and around the building, some of these in the crypt, invite visitors to browse and shop for beautiful gifts and souvenirs.

An idyllic little Christmas setting right on the water: the Fleetinsel Christmas Market is situated on a canal island in the hinterlands of the busy city centre and is a popular spot for a relaxed after-work get-together surrounded by water.

HafenCity Christmas Market outside the Old Port Authority on Überseeboulevard is filled with lovely artisan stalls and new for this year will be the ‘winter golf’ ice track.

Hamburg’s night-time Christmas markets

Hamburg celebrates the run-up to Christmas with not just the traditional, but also the more adventurous markets.

Christmas in St Pauli (Hamburg’s former red-light district): during the Yuletide season, the Spielbudenplatz is transformed into a very different Christmas market. Between live music and Christmas angels, the Santa Pauli market celebrates the festival of love. Santa Pauli is an incredibly colourful experience with an adults-only fir forest, and the Santa Pauli strip tent.

This year’s Winter Pride – Hamburg’s LGBTQ+ Christmas market – once again opens its pink gates, attracting locals and guests alike with its unique atmosphere in the quirky district of St Georg. You won’t hear Christmas carols here – instead you can look forward to live DJs on Fridays and Saturdays from 7 pm.

Cultural events in Hamburg in the run-up to Christmas

During the festive season there are many events and exhibitions on display in Hamburg’s renowned museums. Here are our top five events for this year’s Yuletide season:

The 50th anniversary season of world-famous ballet director John Neumeier is the perfect occasion to experience his production of the fairy-tale ballet The Nutcracker at the HAMBURG BALLET of the Hamburg State Opera – a classic Christmas piece that will be performed just before to just after Christmas.

The Christmas Oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the most popular classical works to celebrate the festive season. In the run-up to Christmas, the oratorio will be performed alongside many other concerts in Hamburg’s magnificent baroque St Michaelis Church.

The Hamburg Kunstmeile, the association of art institutions in Hamburg’s city centre, will have three new large-scale exhibitions: at the Deichtorhallen, In the Heart of Another Country presents contemporary art from the Middle East, which is being shown in cooperation with the Sharjah Art Foundation. The Bucerius Kunstforum puts a spotlight on Roman antiquity with its exhibition New Images In the Age of Augustus: Power and Media in Ancient Rome. The new exhibition is currently the largest one dedicated to the Augustan age.

The third new exhibition, Breathing, explores the many different facets of the act of breathing and its representations – from the Old Masters to present-day works. More than 100 exhibits engage in exciting dialogues, some of which transcend epochs. The result is an unconventional exploration of an existential theme. Whilst there take the opportunity to admire the main works of the famous North German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich as part of the permanent exhibition – before next year’s special exhibition on his 250th anniversary attracts masses of art lovers.

Rugged Hank

Education Technology Day must be extended to prisons

Education Technology Day must be extended to prisons

Typically thought of as being an easy to clean area of the home, hard floors have risen in popularity in recent decades. Globally, hard floors are the most common floor type,2 and research released today by Dyson has uncovered poor cleaning habits that mean hard floors are likely to be harbouring an array of hidden nasties. This comes as 32% of Brits – equating to 21.6 million people in the UK – will use the same dirty mop head for six months or more before replacing it. What’s more, one in 20 also admit to keeping the same mop for a year or longer, and one in 10 think it is acceptable to use the same mop 100 times, spreading dirt around their floors every time they use it. Cross contamination is a primary issue for most common and traditional mopping methods with germs and bacteria further being unknowingly spread around homes as Brits use dirty water to clean floors.3 45% only change the water to new water between rooms, whereas 41% wait even longer until it looks dirty. This could mean that floors are being washed with dirty water, adding more dirt rather than taking it away. Surprisingly, almost one in 10 (9%) even admit to not changing the dirty water at all when mopping. Over a quarter (28%) admit to mopping their floors once a fortnight or less while over half (53%) admit they don’t regularly clean behind appliances and leave dirt to build up for as long as six months at a time. image002.jpg On how to achieve a perfect barefoot clean feel after mopping, Geli Lee, Dyson Engineer and Home Cleaning Expert offers their top tips for eliminating dirt around the home: 1. Create a cleaning schedule to stay on top of dirt build-up. In the last year, there has been a 15% global reduction in the number of people who maintain regular cleaning schedules. 47% of the British public admitted to only being motivated to clean when they spot visible dirt or dust.4 Regular floor cleaning with a wet hard floor cleaner like the Dyson WashG1™ removes more stubborn dirt than vacuuming alone. It is important to have a debris free surface, clear any clutter from the floor or other surfaces. Choose the right machine: Different vacuums are designed for different floor types and home sizes. Some machines will be engineered with hard floors in mind and will struggle on thick pile carpets, for example. Choosing the right machine for your home will make a big difference to the ease and speed with which you’re able to clean your home. Clean your floors ‘little and often’. Washing your floors frequently in areas that receive more foot fall will help to stop dirt building up and getting trodden into your floor. Using a dedicated wet floor cleaner on hard flooring such as the Dyson WashG1 is helpful for this, as the versatile format means it vacuums and washes the floor simultaneously. Cleaning schedules have also become less regimented. In recent years only 41% of people claim to have a regular cleaning schedule, and 60% admit to cleaning reactively; being motivated to clean only when there is visible dirt or dust5. It’s perhaps not surprising, that a fifth of people are still concerned their floors are dirty after they’ve mopped them (22%) and one in four6 feel extremely worried about indoor dust at home. Geli Lee, Dyson Engineer and Home Cleaning Expert reveals why it is important to change the way we mop: “Cleaning your hard floors properly and regularly is important for maintaining a healthy environment around your home. Without a proper cleaning routine, dirt may unknowingly build up and spread around your home. It is evident from our research that current mopping habits mean British households aren’t cleaning their floors as effectively as they should. “From ignoring problem areas where dust and debris build up, cross contamination with dirty water to not replacing mop heads or inconsistent cleaning, current mopping behaviours may be making floors dirtier as opposed to cleaner. Moving away from traditional methods, wet floor cleaners like the Dyson WashG1 simplify the floor cleaning experience and provide a modern efficient and hygienic solution” To help take the guesswork out of mopping, the brand new WashG1 is Dyson’s first dedicated wet floor cleaner that tackles wet and dry debris in one go. Engineered for hygienic cleaning and maintenance, the WashG1 is revolutionising wet floor cleaning, removing the need for multi-products and multi-steps to achieve a barefoot clean feel around the home. To put the product to the test, Dyson have cleaned one of London’s most iconic landmarks The Victoria and Albert Museum. From cleaning the grand marble floors housing the most prestigious exhibits, to cleaning up leftover food in the Gamble Room Cafe, the WashG1 had a dirt busting tour of the museum leaving it spotless. Images can be found here. The WashG1 introduces Dyson’s engineering expertise to cleaning hard floors. With a 1 litre clean-water tank to cover flooring up to 290m2, the Dyson WashG1 uses a combination of hydration, absorption, and extraction technologies to remove wet and dry spills and stains simultaneously. The Dyson WashG1 is available to purchase now from Dyson.co.uk, retailing at £599.99.

Typically thought of as being an easy to clean area of the home, hard floors have risen in popularity in recent decades. Globally, hard floors are the most common floor type,2 and research released today by Dyson has uncovered poor cleaning habits that mean hard floors are likely to be harbouring an array of hidden nasties. This comes as 32% of Brits – equating to 21.6 million people in the UK – will use the same dirty mop head for six months or more before replacing it. What’s more, one in 20 also admit to keeping the same mop for a year or longer, and one in 10 think it is acceptable to use the same mop 100 times, spreading dirt around their floors every time they use it. Cross contamination is a primary issue for most common and traditional mopping methods with germs and bacteria further being unknowingly spread around homes as Brits use dirty water to clean floors.3 45% only change the water to new water between rooms, whereas 41% wait even longer until it looks dirty. This could mean that floors are being washed with dirty water, adding more dirt rather than taking it away. Surprisingly, almost one in 10 (9%) even admit to not changing the dirty water at all when mopping. Over a quarter (28%) admit to mopping their floors once a fortnight or less while over half (53%) admit they don’t regularly clean behind appliances and leave dirt to build up for as long as six months at a time. image002.jpg On how to achieve a perfect barefoot clean feel after mopping, Geli Lee, Dyson Engineer and Home Cleaning Expert offers their top tips for eliminating dirt around the home: 1. Create a cleaning schedule to stay on top of dirt build-up. In the last year, there has been a 15% global reduction in the number of people who maintain regular cleaning schedules. 47% of the British public admitted to only being motivated to clean when they spot visible dirt or dust.4 Regular floor cleaning with a wet hard floor cleaner like the Dyson WashG1™ removes more stubborn dirt than vacuuming alone. It is important to have a debris free surface, clear any clutter from the floor or other surfaces. Choose the right machine: Different vacuums are designed for different floor types and home sizes. Some machines will be engineered with hard floors in mind and will struggle on thick pile carpets, for example. Choosing the right machine for your home will make a big difference to the ease and speed with which you’re able to clean your home. Clean your floors ‘little and often’. Washing your floors frequently in areas that receive more foot fall will help to stop dirt building up and getting trodden into your floor. Using a dedicated wet floor cleaner on hard flooring such as the Dyson WashG1 is helpful for this, as the versatile format means it vacuums and washes the floor simultaneously. Cleaning schedules have also become less regimented. In recent years only 41% of people claim to have a regular cleaning schedule, and 60% admit to cleaning reactively; being motivated to clean only when there is visible dirt or dust5. It’s perhaps not surprising, that a fifth of people are still concerned their floors are dirty after they’ve mopped them (22%) and one in four6 feel extremely worried about indoor dust at home. Geli Lee, Dyson Engineer and Home Cleaning Expert reveals why it is important to change the way we mop: “Cleaning your hard floors properly and regularly is important for maintaining a healthy environment around your home. Without a proper cleaning routine, dirt may unknowingly build up and spread around your home. It is evident from our research that current mopping habits mean British households aren’t cleaning their floors as effectively as they should. “From ignoring problem areas where dust and debris build up, cross contamination with dirty water to not replacing mop heads or inconsistent cleaning, current mopping behaviours may be making floors dirtier as opposed to cleaner. Moving away from traditional methods, wet floor cleaners like the Dyson WashG1 simplify the floor cleaning experience and provide a modern efficient and hygienic solution” To help take the guesswork out of mopping, the brand new WashG1 is Dyson’s first dedicated wet floor cleaner that tackles wet and dry debris in one go. Engineered for hygienic cleaning and maintenance, the WashG1 is revolutionising wet floor cleaning, removing the need for multi-products and multi-steps to achieve a barefoot clean feel around the home. To put the product to the test, Dyson have cleaned one of London’s most iconic landmarks The Victoria and Albert Museum. From cleaning the grand marble floors housing the most prestigious exhibits, to cleaning up leftover food in the Gamble Room Cafe, the WashG1 had a dirt busting tour of the museum leaving it spotless. Images can be found here. The WashG1 introduces Dyson’s engineering expertise to cleaning hard floors. With a 1 litre clean-water tank to cover flooring up to 290m2, the Dyson WashG1 uses a combination of hydration, absorption, and extraction technologies to remove wet and dry spills and stains simultaneously. The Dyson WashG1 is available to purchase now from Dyson.co.uk, retailing at £599.99.

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