Our Odyssey: Hamburg

After my horrendous day yesterday we went by train into Hamburg today to have a look around. We drove to a local station and caught a train into the city. Our plan was to use one of the hop on-off buses to see the main points of interest in the city - we chose 'Top Tour' which was in fact a 'Top waste of Money'. The buses were late, we waited for one for over an hour when they were supposed to run every ½ hour and the commentary was personal in German & English - with much more German than English and often the English commentary was too late for the things you were supposed to be looking at - not a company I would recommend. We also were on the bottom floor for the first half of the tour - so not able to take photos of some sights like St Michaels and the Reeperbahn - where Ethan turned various shades of red and didn't quite know where to look along that stretch of the tour!!

This I lifted from Google - but I did see it today on the Reeperbahn - can I say this is rather tame (and has been somewhat censored) compared to some of the pictures/ images that were along that street, not much was left to the imagination with some of the pictures!!!

Anyway, we did eventually manage to get to the port and board a boat trip. the commentary was all in German, but they had given us an informative pamphlet that detailed the key points along the trip, in order, so that we were able to read about the key places along the way. Of course, we also had our own expert (Barry) - the boys wanted to know how he knew so much about ships when he works with planes, so he had to explain that before he worked with planes he worked with ships - pretty much any form of transport that doesn't involve roads! We where also able to purchase food and drink, that and the weather made it a very pleasant trip - the highlight of the day.

It was at this point that we had to wait forever for the bus - eventually we ended up back at Central Station - where we left the bus and walked back through the centre of the city via the shopping mall precinct. Stopping to buy Jacob a new pair of trainers and some food. We then headed home as I have a 3000 word assignment due on Monday and I needed to get started on it!!

Part of the Port of Hamburg. It is the second largest port in Europe after Rotterdam.

On board ready for the trip.

Some old cranes from the original port.

Interesting building - don't know what it is - it wasn't in the pamphlet.

This is the 'Beluga'. It is an A300 super transporter - used to transport Airbus plane parts from France to the Airbus manufacturing centre just outside Hamburg. She was taking off as we came down the river - and she is mentioned in the pamphlet - although Barry had already identified it and told us all about it!

This is the Dockland building, designed by Hadi Teherani who has won lots of architect awards

Tugboats all lined up waiting to move ships in and out of port.

Some of the rather luxurious houses that are along the river

Don't know what the story on this is - but he was looking at the port.

The river - the open sea is 80 miles in that direction. The river is tidal - with no locks etc- so the water level in the river rises and falls with the tides.

Line of modern cranes in a few of the empty berths in the harbour

This ship had lots of refrigerated contains - so Barry tells us!

The Kohlbrand Bridge and canal. This canal connects the north and south arms of the Elbe River.

The biggest container ship that we saw in port today.

The second largest ship in port today

Refuelling one of the ships (again information provided by our resident expert)

The expert says these are either wheat silos or gas tanks

This is dry dock 11 - it will sink under the water for a ship to sail in and then it rises so that it can be worked on. This one is able to hold a ship with dead weight of 60 000tonnes.

This ship was being built/refurbished in this dry dock. It is dry dock 17 which was especially built to house the Bismarck. It is the longest in Europe at 1150ft x 170ft - it is also the dry dock used to perform maintenance on the Queen Mary 2.

The Lion King musical in the Harbor Theatre has been running in Hamburg for 11 years and the shows are STILL sold out

The building under construction is the new home of the Hamburg Philharmonic. When completed it will be one of the world's biggest concert halls, it is also a 220 room hotel and has 40 luxury condos - all of which are sold and are the most expensive real estate in Hamburg.

Hamburg is also a big port for ocean cruise liners and river cruises. This is the 'Aida sol',visiting for the day.

The tour guide on the bus called this area 'the island' the map calls it Hafen City. It is a mixture of old warehouses that have anew life as apartments and businesses and new buildings.