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.
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)
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)
