Day Trip to Hamburg

To View all my photos from Hamburg CLICK HERE

Hello all,

Things are going very well in Germany. Saturday our group took our first day trip to Hamburg, Germany, which is a port city in the Northwest Germany. We got our first taste of train travel, and let me just say, we would have spent much more money if we hadn't got help from a nice German lady who showed us how to use the ticket machine :). So far people here are very nice, although I have been a little caught off gaurd by the fact that in the German culture people don't smile as a friendly gesture like we do. So initially you think that, "Wow these people, must have some problem with me..." but it's really just a cultural thing that I have discovered.

So anyways, Hamburg is such a beautiful city, the architecture both modern and old, the canals, bridges, churches, the harbor... there really wasn't anything I didn't like about it. So the train from Celle, which is the train station closest to our base (about a 25 min. drive), to Hamburg was about 1:45 min. Traveling by train is ideal in Europe, the trains are always right on time and you have lots of departure times to choose from. When we went to Hamburg, we didn't really have any plans, we just wanted to explore the city. And that's exactly what we did.

When we arrived at Hamburg Hbf we walked into the city center which was just lined with designer shops and cafes. We arrived around 2pm and we hadn't eaten yet, so we tried out this sandwich shoppe for some authentic German cuisine... Whatever I had, forget what it was called, but it was delicious. It was kind of like thinly sliced meatloaf with ketchup and lettuce on a large bread bun... I took a picture of it, so if you want to see it click the link at the top of this posting.

After we ate, we walked further into the city center and visited St. Petri Kirche (St Peter's Church)... we weren't allowed to take photos inside, but we climbed the church tower and were allowed to take photos. The church tower was 137m high and we had to climb something like 548 steps, but it was well worth it. There was nothing like the 360 view of the city. It is the tallest tower in the city and you could literally see for miles.

Just after descending the tower, we visited the Rathaus (City Hall and government building). It was an impressive building with beautiful architecture inside and out. View photos for a better look. After that we hopped on a bus towards the harbor in search of Miniature Wunderland, which we never found, but our wandering around along the harbor allowed us to see more of the city, which was very nice. While wandering we decided to enter the St. Michael's church which has a bell tower that has the largest clock in Germany. The inside was beautiful and I got a lot of really good photos.

If it weren't for us wandering, we would have never stumbled upon the Duckstein festival! It was a lot of fun, live music, street entertainers and lots of different types of food from lots of different countries. I ate a rib eye steak sandwich from a Spanish tent particularly because of the very attractive Spanish Senorita that was serving food. I enjoyed my Spanish meal while my other Camp A mates enjoyed African and other cuisine.

Shortly after eating and enjoying a glass of beer and wine, we made our way back to the train station to end our lovely day in Hamburg. Life is oh so good!!

Until next time,

Auf Wiedersehen