Hamburg Day 1

Wednesday, 23 August 2017

We awoke on Wednesday about 7, having dropped into bed at 8:30 the night before. The sky was clear and blue and we set off to find out where the complimentary breakfast is served. This turned out to be a pretty big buffet of breakfast food. All of the American favorites (bacon, eggs, cereals) and lots of european stuff (cold sausages, cheeses, fancy breads). The dinning rooms (3 of them) were pretty full, and even at 65 degrees, happy smokers were enjoying their meal and smokes on the outdoor balconey.

Fortified for our day, we set out on phase1: ride the "Hop-On/Hop-Off" sightseeing bus around the city. The tour lasted 90 minutes. The first time round, we did not hop, just listened and watched for places to explore. The second time around, we hopped off at the harbor.

Every city in Germany has a TV tower (Fernsehturm in German). Unlike these in the USA, they are proud landmarks in each city, generally the highest structure in the city. This is Hamburg's.

Hamburg Harbor

We did a walking tour of the harbor pier. My reliable seasickness makes the boat tour much less appealing. Hamburg is a harbor town, with 10% of jobs connected to shipping. From our vantage point, it looked like a harbor tour town, with dozens of flat tour boats loading and unloading tourists.

Old Sailing Ship Converted to a Restaurant and Museum

It was a hot, sunny day down on the pier, so we headed inland to find someplace in the shade to drink some beer and eat some seafood. That went very well, and we hopped back on the bus to ride home. Time for blogging and napping until dinner.

We have a free transportation pass from the hotel for city busses and the underground. We rode the underground to a lake we'd seen downtown, and found an outdoor Italian cafe to eat and watch the people.