Jan-Hendrik Petersen

Moin. I worked on the harbour for nineteen years, first as a deckhand on a pilot boat, then in the port authority's traffic centre watching container ships come up the Elbe on a screen. When they automated half my job I took the guide exam of the Hamburg chamber and never looked back. My family is from Flensburg, close to the Danish border, and my mother still speaks Danish to me on the phone. I know the Speicherstadt warehouses from the inside because my uncle stored carpets in one for thirty years. I am a short-sentence person. I will tell you what the building is, why it matters and then let you look at it. On Sundays at five in the morning I am usually at the Fischmarkt, which is where my best tour starts. I live in Altona, in a flat with a balcony facing the cranes, and I still cannot sleep without ship horns. These days you can join me from anywhere: I walk Hamburg live with my phone and answer questions on the spot.