More about #Hamburg

I still like to talk a little about Hamburg. There is a lot to see there. The one sight that impressed us the most was Miniature Wunderland. It is a must-see when in Hamburg. It is only six minutes with the U-Bahn from the Hauptbahnhof. You take the U3 to Baumwall and then it is a ten-minute walk to Miniature Wunderland.

We spent the whole day there. What a wonderful experience that was. 14,000 km of model railroad tracks running through miniature landscapes—valleys and mountains of places that actually exist. There are literally thousands of trains running continually. And the number of miniature people is unbelievable. They even have an airport with planes landing and taking off, rescue wagons and fire engines racing through a miniature town toward burning building. It is incredible and mindboggling. I took hundreds of pictures.

The whole thing is inside a multi-storey building and there was a huge crowd of people. We were there on Friday, August 28 and there were still a lot of children among the visitors. On one of the floors they have a restaurant where you can get food for a reasonable price. Even beer.

On Saturday we went to the Hagenbeck Zoo, also a recommended sight to see. You get there by using the U2 and it takes 15 minutes to get there. We paid 28 Euro (Can. $42.00) per person, which includes visiting the aquarium. It was a lot of money but worth it. We arrived at 9:45 AM and left at 5:00 PM. They give you a map to follow and it is quite easy to find all the displays and see all the animals. We didn’t see the lions; they were hiding. There is a restaurant inside the park and many small vendors where you can buy food.  

The next day, Sunday, we took the City Tour and it was interesting to see all the old buildings and other sights. You can get off and on whenever and wherever you like. The first time we didn’t get off anywhere, just enjoyed the sights. The second time we got off at a couple of places. One of the stops was the ‘Museum für Völkerkunde’ that displayed pictures and artifacts from ancient Egyptians, also some history about the Indians in America and their plight and pictures and artifacts from people in Africa and their suffering. It wasn’t worth the 8 Euros we paid per person to see that. We’ve seen stuff like that before. You don't need to go to a museum to find out about the misery in this world; you see that every day on TV.

In the afternoon we went on the harbor tour. That was quite interesting to see the big ships and how the load those containers onto the ships. Unfortunately, it rained during the tour, but they have a roof over the seats, so that wasn’t a big deal.

We used our Hamburg Card to buy the tickets for the city and harbor tour and got a discount, but we ran into a bit of a snag. We bought the tickets on Friday in Baumwall after visiting Miniature Wunderland, but when we got off the bus by the ‘Landungsbrücke’ they told us we have to board the ship in Baumwall where we bought the tickets, so we had to walk all the way to Baumwall, which fortunately was only a ten-minute walk. No big deal. Except we had to walk in the rain on the way back to the bus stop. The red Double-decker bus doesn’t stop in Baumwall. By the way, we paid 55.00 Euro for both of us with our discount, that’s about $83.00 Canadian. Seeing the sights is expensive, especially now with our low Dollar, but the whole trip cost a lot of money and there is no point in saving money in the wrong place. We may never go there again.

We enjoyed Hamburg, the sights and the good food, and we left there satisfied with what we had seen and done.

Our next destination was Schwerin, a city of about 100,000 people. Why Schwerin? An old friend of mine lives there. We haven’t seen each other since 1960. I was anxious to meet him again.