Thursday, May 5, 2011

Hamburg May 2 - 7

 Arrived on 2 May at 11:30 in Hamburg Altona with the fast ICE train from Berlin (in less than 2 hours). It is sunny but a cool 56F. Staying with a friend, we met in Argentina, and her partner in the apartment buildings "Guest Apartment" with all the luxuries like a hotel room. Planing on leaving Saturday to Bremen. Tuesday, roamed around Altona and later the center of Hamburg, lunch at Daniel Wisher (old Fish restaurant) then a Sauna on our roof garden and dinner.

Wednesday May 4, spent the day visiting, grave sites at the Ohlsdorf Cemetery, then the Poppenbuttel and Hohenfelde areas of Hamburg (where I grew up). The evening we strolled up and down the Reeperbahn and a few side streets, like Herbert Str.    Thursday May 5, went to the Harbor this morning to take a Ferry up the Elbe to Blankenese where we strolled the streets and had lunch, Back by bus and dinner on the rooftop. Friday we will spent some more time in Altona and watch the parade of boats at the Hamburg Harbor's 822 Birthday party (Yes 822). 50+ Sail Ships are ready in the harbor to participate in this three day event.  We have tickets for Saturday to go by train to Bremen for two nights then on to Frankfurt and Geneva.

We are staying in Altona a big area near St Pauli Reeperbahn of Hamburg (long time ago part of Denmark). The walk to the Altona train station is always an experience you think you are in Istanbul. This half mile stretch, full of shops and restaurants, is full of Turks all ages and they spent the morning smoking and drinking coffee in the coffee shops. You hear little German even they do speak German and most have lived here for 40+ years. They tell us Hamburg has MANY tourists - compared to Berlin there is no one here! Once every hour you see a City Tour bus with maybe a dozen tourists driving around and on the streets you see some and hear a few different languages. Not at all like Berlin 4-5 City Tour buses every 20 minutes full of tourists and the streets were full of tourists, noisy and every language or German dialect can be heard even the public transportation in Berlin was full of people and many of them tourists.

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