If you find history dry as dust and therefore boring, you should make a stop at the Speicherstadt warehouse district on your tour with the Maritime Cirle Line – and visit the Dungeon. This is where the history of the city comes to life. Especially its darker side.
A great example of this is the “Gängeviertel” station in the Dungeon: around 200 years ago, this district extended from the area that would later become Hamburg’s famous Speicherstadt district right down to the edge of the harbor. Hamburg’s citizens lived in poverty and cramped conditions in the Gängeviertel, but their sense of community was particularly strong. The dark pubs and narrow alleyways of the Gängeviertel were mainly frequented by dock workers, scoundrels and cutthroats. Respectable citizens only ventured into this maze of alleyways if they wanted to indulge in gambling, buy weapons or illegal substances. This gruesome and beautiful episode is brought back to life in the Dungeon.
This also applies to the devastating fire that ravaged Hamburg in 1942 and razed entire districts to the ground. Visitors can get very close to the fire in the Dungeon. Other themes in the Dungeon include the plague epidemic of 1712 and the Santa Fu prison with its sinister and cunning inmates.
