Days 15 and 16, Thursday, April 30, Hamburg, Germany

Yesterday was another sea day…very relaxing.  We read a lot.  Have never found that quiet spot so we got our phones and our bluetooth headphones and found two comfortable chairs….turned on our music and never heard anybody else.  Wonderful.

The couple from NY who had organized the Normandy trip stopped by and showed us the pictures and experiences they had on their private tour out in the Holland countryside.  Her grandparents had immigrated to the US from this area of Holland so she wanted to try to find the little town/area.  The driver was familiar with it so they had a wonderful day (sounds like) seeing the countryside dotted with tulips, windmills (got to go inside one).  I was jealous.  We totally missed out on Holland.  She uses “Tours by Locals” when she looks for tours….will keep that in mind.

But that’s past.  Today, Thursday, we are in Hamburg, Germany.  We watched the tour buses leave early this morning…most were going to Berlin—about 2-3 hour drive from here.  Almost 2/3 of the passengers are getting off this first leg in Copenhagen on Saturday, so this was the only chance to see Berlin.  We are doing the Berlin tour on the next leg (Baltic) from Warnemunde, Germany.

Hamburg is a beautiful city.  Many of it’s oldest buildings were burned by the great fire of 1842 and others destroyed in the bombings during WWII.  Some survived or have been painstakingly restored, right down to details like street candelabra.  The skyline is noted for the old beautiful church spires….five are visible at one time.

We had reservations for a 10-11 a.m. time slot for a visit to the Miniatur Wunderland—4-5 blocks from the cruise terminal.  We started out walking about 9 ish…got there way early, but they said no problem and let us in.  It appeared to be a perfect time…it was crowded, but  we walked right in; later in the day we came back by it and the lines were deep outside.

We got a locker for 1E to store our backpacks, coats, etc in…glad we did, cause it was crowded and would have been difficult to maneuver around with them.

Miniatur Wunderland: The largest model railway layout in the world is spread over three floors with sections devoted to Hamburg and its port, Germany's Harz Mountains, Scandinavia, Switzerland and the United States. Scale models, apart from 930 trains winding through the landscape, include 10,000 cars, trucks and buses; numerous ships, roads and buildings; 215,000 miniature figures (the people were about ¼ inch tall, then they had little children, dogs, ) and varied scenery (you could distinguish the cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower growing in the gardens)  and spots of activity, such as a ship docking and firefighters attacking a blaze at city hall. The settings go

Work  in progress

through day and night cycles.   The latest creation (and these guys are creative) is the working airport….it is absolutely amazing.  It covers over 1300 square metres, includes over 335,000 lights, 228,000 trees, and is run by 46 computers.  It’s taken 580,000 hours thus far to build this.  And construction is planned all the way through 2020.  There’s a huge section showing them doing the actual building and construction. This is worth a special trip to Germany!! 

The beginning

It starts by showing Hamburg from the neanderthal days up through WWII and the various stages of transformation before and after the war in smaller enclosed units.  That was very interesting.  It then showed sections of Berlin before and after the war with the Berlin Wall in the center of town.

After the war

The Berlin Wall

Then on to the huge, huge exhibits.  The most fascinating one was the

Arrival/departure screen

airport…planes landing, taking off, rolling up to the terminal…the UPS and cargo side…..we were just in awe. They even had an Arrival/Departure board.   Evidently the techs saw a problem as they were over behind the display working at some terminals.  Walked through for over 3 hours and just couldn’t stand up anymore…there were lots of people and I never heard one word of English, but everyone was nice and not pushy…well, almost everyone.

All these scenes are in miniature:

I have videos of all this which will be posted later...they have to be edited first...too big.  They are fascinating.

Left there and got a bite to eat.  Had trouble with the language (or lack of) but a young German lad helped us out…interestingly, he asked, “what language?”   I said English and he pointed us to the right spot when I told him what we wanted.  Wonder what he would have done had I said “Chinese” or “Polish”…

It was raining when we walked out, so the decision was made to walk back towards the ship.  If we ran across the Hop On, Hop Off bus, we’d take it; otherwise, not spend lots of time trying to find it—feet hurt. 

Well, walked right up on it, hopped on and took a two hour tour of the city of Hamburg.  The guide spoke in German with some English explanations thrown

Beatles got their start here

in.  He was so smooth…from one language right into another.  However, I’d say 90% of it was in German, so I felt that they got a whole lot more information than we did.  But the city was beautiful.  Went through a luxury residental area along the lake inside the city….beautiful gardens. 

Red Light District

Went through the very large and famous Red Light District…it just looked sleazy and this was in broad daylight…can’t imagine at night.   Took a peak down the street where the Beatles got their start.  The area around the street is called Beatles Square.

Scenes from Hamburg:

Train Station

Residential area

It was a good tour even if we didn’t understand most of what he said.  We got back to the ship a little after 4, ate dinner, I bought another internet package and got some posting done.  Came to room, took a shower and put our feet up….We stood a lot today.   But it was a good day.  Sunny with a rain shower here and there and high 50’s.  Warm in the sun.  Wunderbar!

An added note:

We were supposed to leave Hamburg at 9 p.m.  We didn’t.  I told Ronnie that it was probably a late tour bus coming from Berlin.  Well, ended up being 8 tour buses late.  It was nearly 10 before we pulled away.  Captain made the announcement explaining the late departure and noted that we had an eight mile cruise down the Elbe River back out to sea and that it was a very beautiful cruise at night. 

He was so right.  There are apartments, businesses, restaurants all lined up and down the river and people were standing outside seeing us off all along the way.  They would cheer at us and we’d cheer back at them….it was really beautiful and fun.  Of all things, we spied two paddle-wheel like boats….The Mississippi Queen and the Louisiana Star.  Have no clue how they got up here in this part of the world. We left with the theme from Love Boat blasting down the river.

We watched and froze out on the balcony for 30-40 minutes then called it a day….A great end to an amazing day.