Hamburg & beyond

Day 5 - No hamburgers in Hamburg
I must confess my geographical ignorance that I was not aware that Hamburg is a) reached from the west b) some 70 miles up the Elbe River.  But what I did know from the Captain's report yesterday was that we'd be sailing up the river early in the morning.  I woke up about 5.30, mainly as I could detect sunshine outside (sunrise was 4.53).  Yes, we had entered the river and sailing towards the city.  It reminded us of the European river cruise, as there were some magnificent houses, castles etc. along the way.  Once again we did a 180 degree turn around in the middle of the river - OK, I won't bother to comment any more, as this is obviously the norm!

We berthed at 7.00, the same time as breakfast and once again were given a table fully aft by the window.  We were not really in a hurry but got off before 9.00.  As this is our first EU port, we had to have our passports scrutinised by the German Police.  He seemed intrigued that we had only 1 stamp in our passport.  He handed them back after applying a very large stamp!

The weather was fine but with a cold breeze, but we had studied the map and decided that we could walk along the river to the centre of town and see the sights. By my reckoning,  it was about 3km from the ship.  One of the problems was the cobblestone walkways and the other was the prevalence of  bicycles-they don't hold back and always seemed to approach from behind.

Our initial destination was the new Opera House, which apparently only opened in January.  This is located in the newer Hafen area, still on the water, but away from the City.  We found our way there, but also found a queue of several hundred (at least 500).  We joined the queue but fortunately a student, who seemed to be part of crowd control, told us that the queue was actually for people wanting to by season tickets for 2018!!  If we just wanted to view the building, just to go to the head of the queue to get tickets there.  We'll, that saved a lot of time.  The ticket girl spoke good English & gave us tickets, which we then put in the turnstile and away we went.  As an aside, I later looked at the tickets and they were for 1 hour entry at a cost of €3.  We didn't pay anything and neither did anyone else, so don't know what all that was about.

Interestingly,  the theatre is part of/on top of the Westin hotel, but accessed over some 6 or 7 stories by a couple of very long escalators.   Most impressive.  At the top of the escalators is the foyer, covering pretty much the whole floor, but with outside viewing all around.  Excellent way to see the City, but extremely windy.  We could not access the actual theatres, but there were yet more escalators heading up and out of sight.  While we could have had a coffee there, Vivian thought that it would be better down on the street.  So we did.

We came across this little Cafe (which turned out to be Austrian), which had delicious looking cakes & pastries,  so Vivian had an apple strudel along with a latte, and I just had the coffee.  Forgot to mention that the strudel came with lashings and kadtings of whipped cream.  The bill can't to €13.50 and I think that half of that was for the cream 😀😀  One of the girls spoke a reasonable amount of English,  but the other one, none, so it made it interesting.

While we were sitting there a youngish German couple sat beside us and we chatted at bit - he spoke excellent English but she a little less.  We asked if they were from Hamburg but no she said they were from Koblenz and started to explain where it was.  We said that of course we knew it as we'd been there 6 years ago for the national flower festival and yes, we had taken the gondola over to the castle.  Well, they nearly collapsed - he is a musician and he was in the band playing up at the castle when we visited.  How about that for a small world.

By now it was after 11.00 so we headed over the various canals to the old city centre, looking for the Rathaus (Town Hall, but very appropriate).  We were once again surprised how much of Hamburg is built on canals.  We understand that a lot of the City is actually reclaimed land, so perhaps that explains it.  Found the Town Hall quite easily- it is a magnificent building.  Got the photos, the clock chimed midday and a shower of rain appeared.  Fortunately it was just a passing shower, as we reorintated our map to head to St Michaels Church.  North Germany's largest Baroque church, seating 2,500.  No, we did not climb the 449 steps to view the City.   But we did manage to find the original 17th century widows Almshouses adjacent to the Church.  The map and other information simply said that they were in a blind alley - what they didn't say was that most are now occupied as little shops, so to certain extent it was more good luck that we found them.

Well, showers threatening, we feel that we've seen enough, so retrace our steps back to the ship.   A few light showers on the way,  but not enough to stop us.  The worst thing was that we were now walking into the wind.  Made it back to the ship terminal and couldn't believe the queue for port security.  It took us nearly half an hour to get back on board- so much for German efficiency.  Had room service lunch of toasted sandwich & chocolate cake - yummmm.

Quite a tiring day where we must have walked between 10-12 kilometres,  so we took it easy before dinner.  Straight into bed afterwards.  The weather was pretty overcast and it did not seem that there would have been much to see on our sail out.  Incidentally, we (dis)embarked a couple of hundred Germans, but I am not sure whether the ones getting off had just done a 2 night cruise, or whether they were the remnants of the previous Mediterranean cruise.

Day 6 - at sea again
During the night we felt some distinct movement of the ship and when we woke, it was quite an angry sea and very overcast.  We have been passing by numerous oil rigs in the North Sea and in many cases these have been surrounded by a couple of dozen wind turbines.  A nice combination of (non)renewable energy resources.  Thankfully a wet and windy sea day was the perfect recipe for me to get this up-to-date, also helped by Vivian's line dancing and bridge.

After line dancing we had a coffee and pastry and then up to the stateroom for a freshen up before lunch.  Horrors, Vivian found that she had someone else's black cardigan, it seems that someone else at line dancing picked up hers by mistake.  So off the Customer Services,  but no-one had handed hers in, so she left the "new" one there.  I suggested that she leave her details with CS (which I would have thought they would have asked for).  So off we go down to CS and Vivian stops an Asian woman from Hong Kong, who had been at line dancing.  Although she did not know it, she *did* have Vivian's cardigan!   Apparently she had not really noticed that she did not have buttons on hers, so just as well we bumped into her, as otherwise it would probably never have been returned.

We are currently travelling around the tip of Denmark and will shortly be sailing down the east coast.  The swell has been larger, but the weather generally has improved, with clear skies.  Still very cold though. Tonight is yet again a formal night and it is also the Captain's Cocktail party.  We don't intend to go and are more than a little disappointed at Cunard, as there is no formal invitation, just a note in the Daily Programme that the party is for everyone, depending only on early or late sitting.  A recipe for a dignified bun fight. 

We had planned to go to afternoon tea today after bridge, but when we arrived, the Queens Room was full and there was a queue of at least 50.  Adjourned to the stateroom for room service Green Tea & chocolate cake.  Tomorrow we arrive in Copenhagen and hopefully more sheltered waters for the next week.

Photos:
Adjacent to Cruise Ship Terminal
Across the Elbe to the Opera House
Opera House
Escalator up
Lobby
Vivian and the cream!
Typical canal
Rathaus interior
Exterior of Rathaus
St Michaels inside
Exterior of St Michaels
17th century Almshouses