The Hamburg Rathaus

This is not a house full of rats! Rathaus is the German word for Town Hall. 

We did a tour of the Rathaus,  recommended to us by Chris and Jana. What an amazing building! It has 6 more rooms than Buckingham Palace. The current government have council chambers etc in there. They have balls and functions 3-4 nights a week in the grand ballroom. The rooms that we saw were magnificent. So much attention to detail.

Here is an example of the leather panels that lined some of the rooms. Each panel is about 40cm square.

The ceiling in one of the rooms

A photo of part of the Ballroom. This is the entrance. Above the black marble pillars is

where an orchestra sits and plays music during the evening!  All the walls are painted, but you can't see much of that, cause I chopped it off...or was that Phil?

In the middle of the Rathaus is a large courtyard, with a large water fountain. The statues in the fountain are lovely. Each person is doing something different, catching a fish, another filling a water jug and another bathing.