June 28 - Around Hamburg

On my way out I saw this on the ground - sort of sums up Germany's feelings after yesterday's World Cup loss.

A beautiful morning - one of the canals with the boats of one of many of the harbour tour companies.

My first stop was Miniatur Wunderland, the world's largest model railway.  It's unbelievable and much more than just railroads.  Models of part of cities, all sorts of cars & trucks going everywhere & an (almost) fully operational airport.  

The Hauptbanhof.

A port city

The Control Room.  You can see behind the screens - there are a whack (technical term) of Ethernet cables back there.

There were about 5 or 6 people in there at times.  

Part of the Switzerland exhibit

The airport.   Planes were landing, taxiing to the gate, being pushed back, taxiing and taking off.  The model did everything except unload tiny people.

The even had the Millennium Falcon taking off!

Sometimes things go wrong and human intervention is required.  He took off his shoes and very carefully stepped across the model.

It turns out a train was stuck on a tiny light pole that had fallen over.

The last railroad photo I'm including in the blog.  Don't worry - I  can show you more if you want.  This brings out the inner kid in you. 

AND, I never touched anything (it sure was hard not to).

The next adventure was a harbour cruise.  A couple of things surprise me about Hamburg.  First, that it is a harbour city at all.  It's more than 100 km inland, although the harbour is still somewhat tidal.

Apparently in 1189 the Emperor granted Hamburgians the right to sail free of customs duties on the lower Elbe.  

Another surprise is the repair facilities.  I saw a number of floating drydocks and there is also at least one graving dock.  I think the biggest floating drydock can handle a ship of 250,000 tons.  The commentary was in German, so don't quote me.

An  interesting building.

There are locks in various places to help negate the effects of tides.  Here, we're entering one.

The ocean liner Costa Pacifica tied up being provisioned.  It is 290 metres long, 114,000 GT ( I assume gross tonnes) and has an 8.2 metre draft.  That's 27 feet, which gives an indication of the minimum channel and harbour depths required.

I just looked up some info on Wikipedia and ships with drafts of up to 13.8 M (45 ft) can access the harbour.

The cranes of the Altenwerder Container Terminal.  

This shot shows the contrasts of Hamburg harbour.  In front is Landungsbrucken, a centre for tourism;  behind are visible some of harbour cranes for containers and other cargo.

 Another adventure - a tour of an old Russian sub.  Give this one a miss.  I toured one years ago in Victoria and should know better.

It's just a crawl through a plumber's nightmare.

Now this might interest you - a motorized "Kiddy Car" tour.  I dunno, the bus that pulled up right behind them was pretty big.  They have front and rear escort drivers - might be a fun job.

A walk through the Alter Elbtunnel.  It's about 1200 feet long.  There are stairs and elevators at each end to access it.  Cars can use it as well.  It is a pair of tunnels, but one is out of service at the moment.  The best thing about walking through the tunnel - it was nice & cool down there on a hot day.

On the way back to the hotel I stopped by the Bismarck Denkmal (monument).

This interesting structure is called 'Flakturm IV (Flak Tower 4).  It was built in 1942 as part of the anti aircraft defense system.  It survived the war, became housing and I think is being redeveloped now.  

This picture from Wikipedia shows what the area looked like in 1944.  Up to 25,000 people used the tower as a bomb shelter.

Pizza, salad, beer and ice cream (all the food groups) for dinner and a very pleasant walk back to the hotel through a park.

The arch might be part of a ruin - I never found out any info about it.

That's it for Hamburg - back in the saddle tomorrow to Lutjenburg (118 km)

June 27 - Bremen to Hamburg

One of the best things about today's 120 km ride was that the weather was great.  I cleared up about 0830 and was clear and sunny afterward.  My cold is getting better.

The first photo is a backyard Christmas Tree farm.  Their shapes are more natural than our cultured trees.  Also, it looked like there was a Blue Spruce in the back.





 Meet another Hay Bale family.  Better job than the one yesterday.

I found this house / barn(?) interesting because of the multitude of small windows.  I'm not sure I'd like to live in it.  















I need to talk about this sign.  It was on a bridge.  The top part seems straight forward.  If there is only one truck on the bridge it can be up to 100 tonnes, if two are there together then the limit is 50 tonnes.

So, what's with the bottom sign?  One tank at 70 tonnes verses 2 at 40 tonnes?  I've seen this sign in a number of places, but have not seen one, let alone two tanks.  Of course, this area of Europe has been relatively heavily militarized at times since the World Wars, although we haven't seen much  on this trip.

Anyone know for sure?





We're in Hamburg now, heading for the hotel.  We had some interesting times navigating around construction at one of the suburban rail stations.  

On our first crossing of the river (the Suderelbe) there are 4 bridges in parallel:  A railroad bridge, two for vehicles (we were on one of these) and a pedestrian / cycle  bridge.  This photo is of the stone abutment arch at the north end of the pedestrian bridge.  Because our bridge has huge pedestrian / bike sidewalks, I wonder if this bridge's days are numbered.







Further along another bridge - this one caught my eye because of the interesting arched trusses.
This bridge had 2 sidewalks, 3 lanes each way for traffic and two lanes in the middle that were empty (rush our bus traffic perhaps).

There are lots of waterways and a huge number of bridges over them.  If I photographed all of them, I'd still be out there.



Dean and I were riding together and we decided to stop at St. Nikolas' Church ruins.  Read the plaque to the left to get the history.











The largest section of the church that's still standing.  The bombing did no destroy the tower.












The top of the tower - I had to go down the street to get a decent angle.  When built in the 1800's it was the tallest structure in the world.

The base of the tower / the original main entrance to the church.














We're at the hotel now.  I'm in the 4th floor - a smallish room with a sloping roof.  Looking out my window I can see this square, set up with a big screen so the public can watch the Germany / South Korea World Cup Match.  

Boisterous at the beginning, but very subdued at the end after Germany lost and was eliminated from the Worle Cup.

Out for dinner with another Greg and Rhonda.  Lots of people at the out door restaurants (forgot to take a pix), but not as happy as they wanted to be.

We walked by this building on the way back.  Not sure what it is.  I'll look closer tomorrow, although there are lots of 
buildings to look at.





A statue of Kaiser Wilhelm tucked away in a park we went by after dinner.  

Tomorrow is a free day in Hamburg. I've booked a ticket to Miniatur Wonderland (the world's largest scale model train setup.  Then I'll think about either a harbour tour or a walking tour about the centre of the city, which we are near to.

June 26 - Meppan to Bremen

A tougher ride today - 129 km to Breme. I'm still not over my cold - I spend the first 20 km coughing & spitting up.  Then I'm sweating.  Quit whining, Greg.  You'll survive

Onto today's journey & sights.

On the way out of Meppen - this looks like an old mill site

And this is a Schloss.  Translated it's a castle, but I think it can also be a very fine house or estate.  We were too early to look around, but I did look over the fence out back and saw some exquisitely trimmed trees.

A pleasant pond of the side of the road (I ventured here on a 'business' trip).  I think it was a small camping ground.

I saw a couple of these - thatched roof houses with a section of metal roof at the peak.  I assume the peak of a thatched roof is more vulnerable and needs special protection.  

I see a lot of metal roofs over here, and most of these are made to look like classical tile. 









Demonstrating the patience of Europeans:  the traffic gates came down very early.  The train stopped at the station about half a km down the track.  Once it finished, it finally traversed the road crossing.

Impatient North Americans would probably have gone around the traffic gates if they could see the train stopped.

 Roadside fruit stand in the middle of a village - not uncommon.  Selling asparagus and strawberries.

Speaking of strawberries, here's my snack at the bakery next door.  Cappuccino and strawberry cake.

We're finally in the land of plentiful cafes.  We've barely seen any on the trip so far.











Somebody is having fun with hay bales.  The make "marshmallow" bales over here as well - I've seen white, green and black 'marshmallows' in various fields.










In the British Isles they use little red trucks for rural mail delivery.  In Germany Deutsche Post uses little yellow trucks.  
Here is a yellow bicycle postal wagon.  

The postal lady, stops the bike, kicks down the small wheels to hold the bikes and delivers the mail.  Onto the bike, kick the wheels back and off to the next house.






I followed this recumbent trike down road in Bremen for a bit.  It turns out it is electric.  And he had a boom box on board as well.












I had an hour or so to explore before dinner.
Options included a nearby museum or the Hauptbanhof (Train Station).  Being 'museumed' out I chose the Hauptbanhof.

Here's a shot from the train platform.  Ten platform tracks and two additional through tracks for freight.  It looks just like the train stations in old European movies.

Inside the train station isn't too exciting as it has all been converted to a food court.  Ticketing is done by vending machines.








There is a park on the far side of the train station and was renamed to Nelson Mandela park.

In it is this tile statue of an elephant.  It was originally conceived as a colonial memorial, but was rededicated to symbolize anti-colonialism (I think).  The info I have is a bit fuzzy.

There was a plaque near the front of the elephant, but there was also a pack of slightly drunk and seemingly boorish gentlemen right there.  So I gave the plaque a pass.

Two sailing ships in the river that we saw on our way in.  This one is a floating restaurant.

This one is called the Alexander von Humboldt.  In Wikipedia there is reference to an Alexander von Humboldt II as a sail training vessel.  I don't know if this is it.

Which brings up another question. The two nearby upstream and downstream bridges (both non-opening), are both too low for the Alex von to get under.  So, who knows?




Tomorrow is a 122 km ride into Hamburg.  There are some hills on this one, so it's off to bed to try and kick this cold.