My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
Sunday, 2nd of February 2025
With my birthday landing on a sea day, I considered the next day to obviously be an extension of the holiday. I went to the shore excursions office to see if they had any tours available. They had a spot for “Hamburg by Land and Sea.” The tour would cover a lot of places I had already been to on my previous tour, but this one had a boat ride – I get to ride on a boat?! I was so excited. The Shorex guy pointed out that, technically, I was already on a boat. This was true. But I was still excited.
Moin! (That’s how Hamburgers say ‘hello’.)
The morning was foggy, but the tour guide, Sebastian, was fantastic.
He got on the microphone on the bus and told a joke – and everyone on the bus laughed. It was so refreshing to have a tour guide with comic timing! When I shared my feedback with the Shore Excursions team at the end of the day, they were shocked – the funniest tour guide was in Germany? His family was actually from South America but he grew up in Germany. That explained it.
Sebastian said Hamburg had a disproportionate number of bridges, rich people and single people. It sounded like a great place to find a rich husband.
He had the bus stop on the bridge by the Water Castle. Sebastian told us that this is a very famous shot (I had previously sought out the Water Castle without fully researching why it was worth the visit). But, he pointed out, our pictures would be special because of the fog. Man this guy could spin an inconvenience into a silver lining!
As the tour continued the fog gradually started to lift.
We came to the St Pauli neighborhood, which is the red light district where the Beatles played before they were famous. In Hamburg prostitution is allowed between 8pm and 6am – except on this street:
It didn’t look too busy on a Sunday morning.
And then it was time to go on the boat!
Here is our boat in the lake, right by the shuttle stop.
The swans weren’t quite out yet. Hamburg had been gifted some swans by the English crown. I’ve been told that the swans in England are all owned by the Queen…. er…. King. I guess the swans here were free. But they were ‘put away’ for the winter. I asked where one puts swans away. He said they were put away in a covered lake, which gave my imagination more things to picture.
The boat tour was about an hour. We circled around in the lake. Sebastian said there were also two-hour tours that went in the canals if we ever came back to Hamburg (I would).
We got back on the bus.
We stopped at the Marina with open souvenir shops that I had been to previously. I took the opportunity to chat with Sebastian – I told him I’d been going on a lot of tours lately and so far, he was the best. It turned out that he wasn’t even supposed to be guiding our tour that day – he was supposed to be shadowing someone else, somewhere else, but when that guide called in sick, they asked him to step in. He was just making stuff up! Fantastic.
We stopped at the Widow’s Houses again and at the little gift shop I found cans of the stuff I had eaten when I tried to order a hamburger! So this is what it is:
By the end of the day the sun had come out.
Sunday, the 9th of February 2025
Always in search of something different to do, the next Sunday I decided to walk in by way of the Elbe Tunnel rather than taking the MSC shuttle. The tunnel was built so that people who lived on our side of the river (where the ship was docked) could cross the river quickly to work on the docks. They closed it to car traffic recently, but it’s still open for pedestrians and bikes.
The entrance to the tunnel was about a 45 minute walk from the ship. It went by quickly for me because I talked to Andi on the phone the whole way there. It was so nice to have a friend who’s awake when I’m awake.
Moin Hamburg!
This thing was huge and steep!
I found the elevator before I discovered the stairs inside.
Along the way, there were little pictures of creatures from the river (I’m assuming):
I found it very entertaining that most of them weren’t the pretty creatures that you’d usually find in murals
But there were a couple
We made it to the other side!
I waited for the elevator –
I walked to the Saint Pauli neighborhood to get a closer look at the landmarks where the Beatles hung out before they were famous, but I’m going to save that whole adventure for another post.
I decided to get some lunch and walk back toward the ship’s shuttle rather than returning the way I came. It was a beautiful day (though a lot colder than it looks).
Once again I searched Google Maps for open restaurants and found a place called Zum Spätzle. I decided to go there because I liked the name (and it had good reviews).
This place was TINY- to come in the door, you had to squeeze past the drink fridge.
When I looked at the menu, I realized that I knew what this was! On the Caribbean Princess one of my favorite Guest Services Directors, Elke (from Switzerland), made us a family dinner in the Officer’s Mess during dry dock!
I ordered a big old plate of it.
I was so tickled that I bought a cloth bag to remember this lunch.
Walking back toward the shuttle, I was still blissed out from my awesome day.
I looked around and the sun was shining.
For the first time in a long time it seemed like winter might not actually last forever and spring would soon be on its way.
Tsuss for now!