Tuesday Sept. 18th Day Exploring Hamburg
"You have to see it to believe it!”
This morning Gudrun serves us a surprisingly bountiful breakfast! We help ourselves to the buffet spread out before us making our choices from four kinds of homemade “brotchen”. How do you make a choice from such a selection of fresh crusty breads? But that is not all. We select from other choices: thin slices of ham, prosciutto, two kinds of slices cheeses, granola cereal, yogurt, nuts, cranberries, milk, honey, apricot and berry jam. What a treat and good way to start the day. We cannot thank Gudrun enough for her kindness and hospitality.
After breakfast we are off to the U Bahn for a day in the city of Hamburg. Gudrun leads the way as we walk to the U Bahn (train) station which is just a few short blocks away. She purchases an all day ticket for the three of us and we use the lift to ride to the upper level train tracks. This is a train station? But wait a minute. It is so clean looking. Along comes the U Bahn and we hop on finding seats easily.
This morning we are taking the city tour aboard the red double decker bus. This is a two hour tour showing us the highlights of Hamburg with the bus driver narrating for us in German and also in English. We use the ear plugs to hear the English.
Hamburg is an amazing city with a big variety of points of interest. The highlights include the magnificent mansions along the Alster Lakes, Reeperbahn (city’s red light district), warehouse complex down at the harbor, huge impressive Rathaus (town hall), the Kunst Museum,
city squares surrounded by tall buildings, inner city canals and bridges, parks, old churches, outside shopping areas and the most impressive new Elbphilharmonic concert hall which opened Jan. 2017. This is a modern structure standing tall overlooking the harbor. The concert hall is known for its excellent acoustics and fine concerts…a favorite night out for many.
After the bus tour, we find a nice table for lunch at an outside café in the popular shopping district. Al orders a large roast beef sandwich and shares it with us. This is fine. A dark beer goes great with the sandwich.
After lunch the three of us excitedly purchase tickets to see the much talked about “Miniature Wonderland” near the harbor. Miniature Wonderland is a very large model railway with many miniature buildings among city and country settings. It is the largest kind of miniature railway and village display in the world and some people come to Hamburg just to visit this amazing indoor attraction! After spending a few hours looking at the displays you feel like you just started. Construction started for this indoor project in 2000 by twin brothers Frederik and Gerrit Braun and the project continues to grow!
To date the model railway exhibits the locations of Hartz (Central Germany), Austria, Hamburg, United States, Scandinavia,Switzerland, Knuffingen Airport (fictional), Italy and Venice. In coming years the display will exhibit Monaco, England, Scotland, France, Ireland, Wales and Sydney!
Favorite sections are Hamburg with ships sailing in real water, the football stadium based on Volksparkstadion, Las Vegas strip night scene, railway bridges and Rome. The control room for this whole exhibit is in a glass room so you can see the staff working the controls. Every few minutes the rooms darken and the light display shines brightly. There is animation in the scenes which also fascinates. Like the airport scene. Picture the outside of an airport with airplanes on the runways and standing at stations. All of a sudden you hear a low rumble and the sound gets louder and louder until a small “exploding” sound startles you as a model airplane suddenly appears in the air and lands on an open runway in front of you. Totally amazing. You have to see it to believe it.
After viewing this exhibit we meet our long time friends Anke and Reinhold. Together we take a water taxi along the Elbe River where we get off and have dinner at a delightful restaurant on the river front. We sit at an outside table enjoying good conversation and the river boat scene. This has been a very full and memorable day for us. The U Bahn takes us back to Gudrun’s area and we walk to her apartment. Before going to bed I look at the photo album Gudrun made from her visit with us in Uncasville in 2016. We look at it together. I am reminded how blessed I am with friendship.
Next Day of Journey