I don’t like hard rock. And sex work, giving or receiving, has never carried much appeal, either.

Offering a generous trade in both, it’s unlikely that I should ever find myself in Reeperbahn, Hamburg’s famous red-light district.

I’m here for a work trip—the last one I took before handing in my notice a month later.

I was already worn out, so it’s fitting that work should take me to such a worn out place.

Off the metro into Reeperbahn

Emerging from the underground metro station feels like stepping into CD Projekt Red’s Night City.

Opposite the metro station is the pink-fronted “Sex-House” offering Eintritt frei für Frauen (free entry for women).

It’s a titty bar that shares its frontage with a kebab shop on the left and a place called “GRIZZLY” on the right.

Before dawn, I crept out of my flat in the UK, and started what seems like an absurdly long journey to get to somewhere not very far away.

Nottingham to Manchester, Manchester to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Hamburg—it’s taken about 14 hours end-to-end.

After all that, I’m looking forward to checking into my hotel and realigning my spine.

It isn’t far away, and on the short walk from the metro station, it’s obvious that Reeperbahn is a place of uncomplicated pleasures.

The culture on offer is as easy to absorb as the fate of Henry VIII’s wives:

Takeaway, brothel, pub.

Takeaway, brothel, nightclub.

The hotel turns out to be of the kind that’s cheap for a reason. Given the likelihood of wild sex happening on them tonight (although definitely not in my room), I’m surprised by how light the bed frame is.

When I fall in, it veers across the room like it’s on pulleys.

I’m travelling alone. If there is a camera in my room, its watcher will get a very boring show tonight.

I imagine the other guests are in twos. The lucky ones in threes, maybe.

Pondering for a moment what nocturnal activities might take place later, it occurs to me that, for solo travellers at least, this hotel is probably a BYOB affair—Bring Your Own Bedding.

On the Spielbudenplatz

My hotel directly overlooks the Spielbudenplatz, an upbeat square with stalls pumping music and selling booze.

Groups of friends are enjoying pints of beer and hot dogs over sturdy picnic tables.

I’m tired enough to stay in my room and sleep the night through, but my adventurous side is screaming at me to forget my fatigue and explore.

Spending an early night alone in a hotel room on a work trip is the height of dullness.

So there’s nothing else for it but to go back out and try to remain on the forgivable side of debauchery.

The home of lager and crisps

One doesn’t have to be clairvoyant to deduce that Reeperbahn is not the place to sit and enjoy a quiet meal.

Every other haunt is a biker bar blaring power chords—the kind of places that are kept deliberately dark so that no one ever has to clean them, and where it could be Halloween every night.

Obviously, not everyone here is interested in heavy boozing and the sex trade, but it’s very odd to see old women doddering past the explicit posters and adverts for sex work plastered on every wall.

I’m partial to propping up a bar, but I can’t even be bothered with the quieter places that are just off the strip.

There’s a certain type of pub that, when I step over the threshold, a latent mod-versus-rocker tension bubbles up.

Reeperbahn seems full of those kinds of places, and I’m too tired and edgy to endure that feeling tonight.

For a short while, I just walk around aimlessly, passing rangy beggars and portly boozers on stools.

But I don’t despair.

I adore cheap lager and crisps. And as to indulging those appetites, I’ve reached my Shangri-La.

From a mini-mart across from the “Endless Pain” tattoo studio, I emerge with a carrier bag of Pilsners and crisps, and set off on a solo boozing expedition down by the Elbe River.

Visiting Reeperbahn, drinking alone by the Elbe

Swigging my beers, I’m too drained to have any big thoughts.

I appreciate seeing lager kept unsophisticated. This place also scores positive marks because the locals prefer imbibing their beer directly from the bottle rather than using a glass—my preferred method.

In fact, my entire philosophy on lager is embodied here in Hamburg.

I’m sitting just behind the promenade, in a sunny spot overlooking the river. My back is to a wall that runs perfectly in line with the setting sun, so I can appreciate its warmth until it finally dips below the horizon.

Young couples and friends drink from stout green bottles, stretching their legs and gossiping after work.

The view is pretty enough; full of unapologetic industrial sights rather than natural beauty.

An epileptic man and the muggers

I’ve well started on my second beer when a young man approaches me.

“Are you a tourist?” he asks.

I’m only vaguely listening, and mistakenly think he’s trying to sell me something. I try to wave him off.

“No, I’m not trying to sell anything to you.”

“Just be careful. I have epilepsy, and once, I had a fit and passed out alone in the street. When I came out of it, I had been robbed of everything. So I’m just warning you to be careful.”

“Thanks!”

What an awful story.

Looking around, the place seems friendly enough, but I’ve seen plenty of vagrants and drug addicts on my walk down to the river, and I suppose the atmosphere could take a turn for the sinister after dark.

I don't smoke, but...

My beers make me want to smoke.

I’m not an habitual smoker, but I often treat myself to an illicit cigarette while abroad.

In the Middle East and many parts of Asia, carrying a pack of smokes is simply a good piece of travel advice if you want to strike up a conversation with people.

But my current urge is just plain self-indulgence.

I backtrack for cigarettes and more beer—paid for on my own card this time, not the company’s. I’ll have to submit photos of the receipts when I get home, and I prefer my indiscretions discreet.

Loaded up with more supplies, I decide to take a walk along the elevated promenade and see where it leads.

A walk along the Landungsbrücken Piers

Whatever agency is responsible for setting up and maintaining the Landungsbrücken Piers has done a brilliant job.

The elevated wooden walkway is like the deck of a ship. Curved iron railings with flaking paint look out onto the choppy brown waters of the Elbe.

Studded into the gaps underneath the walkway are ice cream parlours, cafés, bars, and pubs.

There’s enough variety to ensure a match for any energy level.

As I walk, buskers serenade the walkers, enjoying the dwindling evening light. Bars are filling, and the anti‑collision lights on the dock cranes have begun to wink.

Ferries arrive from the open-air theatres on the far side of the river, bow thrusters wrecking the surface of the water as they move into the dock.

Upstream, I stop to admire the Rickmer Rickmers, a pretty red, green, and white three-masted barque permanently at anchor in Hamburg.

It has been turned into a museum, and visitors can clamber aboard to explore the ship. I’m content with a few landside photos.

Wandering in the other direction, you can find a Soviet-built U-boat that has also been converted into a museum.

I don’t make it that far, though.

After more than half a day of travelling, with little more than a Lufthansa Chocolate and some crisps to keep me going, my beers hit me hard.

My lowpoint

I’ve most certainly got a buzz on, and all that lager needs to escape.

I also want to smoke, but I need to pee first.

This urge is an irrelevancy, except for the fact that all the public toilets are now shut, and that my bladder, already weak enough, has suffered through years of tea abuse.

I walk the piers from end-to-end and back again in search of a loo, without luck.

Curses about how a place notorious for enjoying such a bladder-taxing drink could be so cruel as to shut its loos so early in the night run through my mind.

I walk as far as the next metro station, but, by the time I arrive, I’ve marched about so much that the bottom of my stretch-marked carrier bag of beers gives up and tears open.

Even the homeless man sheltering under his pile of rags inside the station looks embarrassed at the sight of a drunk Englishman in shorts clutching a torn carrier bag, smashing the last of his beers against the concrete steps.

Well, with a full day of work tomorrow, it probably wasn’t a good idea to drink them anyway.

The same reluctance that has stopped me from drinking alone at any one of the bars is also the reason I haven’t mustered up the courage to brave one of their loos.

My carrier bag scarcely disguised my beers brought from elsewhere, but I’m free of that burden now, so I take a massive pee in a bar that’s closing for the night.

Finally relieved, I chain-smoke several cigarettes while looking out over the black river, wondering what on earth impulse drove me out of my hotel room and whether that same urge could ever be made compatible with Gainful Employment.

Hamburg's most sinful mile

I look like a mark. I’m wearing shorts, a cheap cotton shirt, and a floral pouch from Lucy & Yak.

Outsider gear, as plain as the beacon lights on the cranes.

Woe betide any man who, dressed as I am, has to walk alone past sinful Herbertstraße after dark, not seeking services.

Girls in becurtained doorways catch my wrist. “What do you want tonight?” they whisper.

“To go home.”

And stitch together the shreds of my dignity, perhaps.

Though there’s nothing stopping me from going in and enjoying myself.

As I pull my hand away, I remember one of my friends, an aeronautical engineer.

On a stag-do, he was offered a private lap dance. Only, the girl raised her rates once they were in their private booth.

He didn’t have enough money to meet her new rates, so he spent his allotted time explaining aerodynamic laws to her.

Besides, I’m happily in a relationship, so the spiciest thing I enjoy is a currywurst from one of the takeaways en route to my hotel.

Giving up and going to bed

Back in my room, the buildings across from the Spielbudenplatz are shining with full-height neon animations straight out of Blade Runner.

I’d prefer Vangelis to the caterwauling sounds of karaoke and shrieking revellers.

But the hotel was cheap for a reason.

I’m still hungry and still drunk.

The thought of the conference I have to attend tomorrow makes me shudder, and in a rare capitulation to shame, I throw my remaining cigarettes in the bin.