From Hamburg to Copenhagen

We left Donaueschingen on Thursday morning (Oct 17) on our way to Hamburg.  We had an hour at Baden-Baden waiting for a connecting train.  To fill in the time, Anna and I took turns at minding the luggage and wandering around the station.  Anna pointed out that the newsagents had foreign language newspapers, so I decided to investigate the books I could see through the window.  This coming Tuesday, Anna and I are setting off for a week in northern Sweden and I decided that I would like a book to read.  The top two shelves of books were in English.  I wasn’t really interested in anything on the lower of the two shelves, however spotted The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling on the top shelf.  This was a book I had intended to read, but hadn’t got around to.  I was looking longing at it, when a very thoughtful woman asked if I would like her husband to get a book down for me.  I was very grateful and now have something to read!

At that stage, little did we realise how stressful our trip to Hamburg was going to be!  With a Eurail pass, on some trains it is compulsory to book a seat, which costs a nominal fee, on some trains, it is recommended, and on other trains, it is possible.  We started off booking on all trains, but decided it seemed like an unnecessary extra expense if the train was not full.  Consequently we hadn’t booked on the Inter-City Express that we were catching to Hamburg.  Unfortunately the train was very crowded.  We eventually found two seats labelled as “released”.  When we enquired, we were told that someone might turn up to occupy them or not.  The very next station someone did appear, so I stopped in the unoccupied seat and Anna found another one.  I spent the whole time wondering whether I would be “seatless” after the next stop.  Fortunately there weren’t all that many stops and the train company provides a flyer which lists the times for all the stops!  At Hanover, quite a few passengers got off, so I sort of heaved a sigh of relief.  However, when we arrived at Hamburg, we went straight to the booking office and booked seats on the train to Copenhagen.

When we left Hamburg Station, it was cold and wet, but as usual we had booked a hotel that was comparatively close to the station.  However the next day was fine and sunny – another glorious autumn day.

After a visit to the post office, we went to the Rathaus (city hall), which is a very opulent building.  However, it was over an hour to the first English-language tour, so we looked around the ground floor and moved on.

The next place we went was Mahnmal St-Nikolai (Memorial St Nicholas).  This church was mostly destroyed during World War II and has not been rebuilt.

Firstly we caught the lift up to the 76.3 metre viewing platform inside the surviving spire.  In spite of not being too keen on heights, I usually enjoy viewing cities from above.  However I didn’t really enjoy this experience.  There was a fairly strong, bitterly cold wind blowing.  We stopped there long enough for Anna to take photos then came back down.

In the crypt, there is an exhibit on the horrors of war, focussing on three events from World War II, the German bombing of Coventry in 1940, the German destruction of Warsaw and the combined British and American bombing of Hamburg over three days and nights in 1943.  Anna in general avoids museums but found it very informative, she really knows very little about World War II.

When we emerged, the sun was shining and we decided to make our way to the wharf from where a number of cruises departed.  However we decided they were either too dear and/or would get back too late.  I wanted to go to the laundromat, which can be a fairly time-consuming activity!  Instead we sat in the sun and ate fish and chips.

We left Hamburg on Saturday morning (19^th).  I was very glad we had reserved seats as the train was initially fairly full.  We had a rather interesting experience.  Between Germany and Denmark, the whole train was driven onto a ferry and we had to go to the upper decks for the 45 minute crossing.  We took the opportunity to change some money into Danish krone.  It is useful to have some local currency as it is not possible to pay for everything by card.

When we were in Canada in April 2011, we flew from Vancouver to Prince Rupert.  We got off the plane, collected our luggage and put it onto the waiting bus.  After we boarded the bus, it drove onto a ferry to take us to across to the town.  But the concept of driving a train onto a ferry was new to me!

After we dropped our bags at the hotel, we walked to Nyhavn (New Harbour) and took an hour long canal boat ride.  It was cold but interesting.  Among other sights, we saw the Little Mermaid.  On the way back to the hotel we called by the Lego store.  There were some models on display, including one of some (I think 17^th and early 18^th century) townhouses at Nyhavn, where we had been.

We had a fairly lazy day today.  I am sure that Copenhagen has much on offer, but I am afraid we were a bit over things.  We did look around the Tivoli Amusement Park as we received free entry tickets from the hotel.  We wandered around, but the only money we spend was on Ben and Jerry’s ice-creams!

Off to Stockholm tomorrow.