Neustadt

Krameramtsstuben

Hamburg's last surviving 17th-century half-timbered courtyard — right beside the Michel.

The Krameramtsstuben are the only surviving 17th-century residential courtyard in central Hamburg — a 50-metre-long lane at the foot of the Michel, where the widows of Hamburg's shopkeepers' guild found a home between 1620 and 1700 after their husbands' deaths. The Krämer (small retailers) were one of the most powerful guilds in the Hanseatic city; the buildings were erected partly as an infirmary, partly as a widows' almshouse. Today they serve two functions: the Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte has one of its outposts here (admission 4 €, a small but atmospheric glimpse of Hanseatic life in the 17th century), and at ground-floor level the eponymous Krameramtsstuben restaurant serves Hanseatic cooking — eel soup, Pannfisch, red-berry compote on a slate board, much as it would have been in 1717. Outside, the picturesque black-and-white half-timbered façade on the narrow Krayenkamp alley is one of the most photographed motifs in Hamburg after the Speicherstadt and the Reeperbahn. The courtyard's thatch and wooden balconies feel so authentic because they are. Getting there: U3 St. Pauli or Rödingsmarkt, then an 8-minute walk. Right at the foot of the Michel — an ideal prelude or epilogue to climbing the tower.

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