Hamburg Townhall

This guide to Hamburg's Rathaus traces Otto von Bismarck's odd retirement ritual, visits to the building's council wine cellar for champagne and roast duck in the last years of his life. It follows the council's own turbulent past, from the medieval town hall blown up in 1842 to halt Hamburg's great fire, through fifty-five years without a permanent seat of government, to the current building's opening in 1897 on driven oak piles. You'll hear what a council wine cellar was really for, beyond the wine. Look for the chamber above the cellar where the city's business still gets done.