While I was snapping some photos today near one of the lakes downtown, I took a photo of one of the seagulls, who immediately started squawking at me. I don’t think he was camera-shy, though. I think what he was saying was “hey, lady — see that building behind you? What you do think that building on the left is again?”

Seagull near the Binnenalster lake, downtown Hamburg

You see, from where he sat, he had this view:

Hamburg City Hall (tower building on the far left)

That building on the background on the left — the one with the tower — is the city hall. Crucially, it is not the train station, as I incorrectly identified it in yesterday’s post (I have since updated the caption on the photo).

What can I say – in my defense, there was some confusing labeling on a photo yesterday that identified buildings that you could see from the view from the St. Nicholas’ Church steeple. Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it, at least.

But this morning, when I spied the city hall again, I immediately realized my mistake yesterday when putting that caption on the photo. Today, after spending more time walking around on my own, plus taking a 3+ hour walking tour around that same center-city area, I now can spot that town hall building from a mile away. Well, at least from a few blocks away:  I actually pointed it out to another participant in the tour, as he needed to find it after the tour, but didn’t realize that it was the one with the big green clock tower on top that we could see way down the street. In his defense, he’d only just arrived this morning – and after all, I couldn’t identify it on my first day in Hamburg, either. 😉

Anyway, take another look at that photo in this post of the town hall. Do you see the blue figure on the railing across the street from where I was standing? It’s the symbol of the touristy stuff in Hamburg. I like how its pose matches that of all the people walking by. Maybe that’s what the seagull was really trying to tell me: turn around, all those people are posing for your camera over there.

BTW, FWIW, here’s a photo of the main train station in Hamburg, which wasn’t in any of the photos I posted yesterday. Note that it does have a clock tower, but not quite as high or as grand as the one on the city hall. But there is one, at least. 😉

Hamburg main train station