Alster Arcade

This guide to Alster Arcade in Hamburg starts with the Great Fire of May 1842, which broke out on nearby Deichstrasse and burned for three days, destroying a third of the old town and turning Hamburg's own militia against looters in the smoking streets. It follows architect Alexis de Chateauneuf, tasked with redrawing the burned heart of the city, and his decision to line the water with fireproof stone arcades borrowed from Italian squares. Swans still glide on the Kleine Alster canal beside the arcade, kept, so legend says, for the sake of the city's own freedom.