Today was our Hamburg exploration day. We started in the Speicherstadt, a historic warehouse district used for imports and exports, mainly coffee, tea, spices, and oriental carpets. Most of the buildings are about eight stories tall and made use of a pulley system to load and unload the goods. Heather was taken back by the amount of brick used and just couldn’t get enough pictures. We visited Spicy’s Spice Museum which was cool, but killed our noses, and then headed for HafenCity. HafenCity is a new urban development which by 2025 will have all the amenities of a functioning city. It even has its own concert house, to be finished next year. This part of the city was so new and clean that it looked like an architectural rendering (like AutoCAD….I think….Deb).
After HafenCity we jumped on a double-decker bus to hit up all the sights we wouldn’t have time to further explore. Debbie started getting stressed because she had made plans to meet Mr. H (otherwise known as Herr Höltzel….Debbie’s horn teacher) for a quick house concert and coffee and wasn’t sure if we’d make it on time. We were only 15 minutes late, but nobody seemed to care. After a quick coffee with Höltzel and his wife, Petra, we had the pleasure listening to Petra’s prodigy son perform his competition program for horn and piano. The concert was followed by strawberries and ice-cream on the front patio, further followed by Höltzel’s famous rhubarb compote. It was delicious!
While the boys planted themselves in front of the TV to watch füssball (soccer) we made our way to the deer park with Petra’s youngest daughter, Alicia. Her lack of enthusiasm eventually pointed us in the direction of the “pretty houses” along the Elbe River. After the short, self-guided walk we headed back to their house for a round of waters and our goodbyes.
On our way back to the hostel we stopped at the St. Michaelis Church to take panoramas of the city from the steeple and to find a bite to eat. After being rejected by multiple restaurants due to the fact that we had no reservations, Heather commented, “economical crisis my ass.” Eventually we ended up in a small Italian place, shared noodles, salad, pizza and tiramisu.
We’re back in the hostel. We have a new roommate from California who seems nice. We’re beat and our feet really hurt. Tomorrow we’re headed towards Bremen for the day!
Debbie & Heather
After HafenCity we jumped on a double-decker bus to hit up all the sights we wouldn’t have time to further explore. Debbie started getting stressed because she had made plans to meet Mr. H (otherwise known as Herr Höltzel….Debbie’s horn teacher) for a quick house concert and coffee and wasn’t sure if we’d make it on time. We were only 15 minutes late, but nobody seemed to care. After a quick coffee with Höltzel and his wife, Petra, we had the pleasure listening to Petra’s prodigy son perform his competition program for horn and piano. The concert was followed by strawberries and ice-cream on the front patio, further followed by Höltzel’s famous rhubarb compote. It was delicious!
While the boys planted themselves in front of the TV to watch füssball (soccer) we made our way to the deer park with Petra’s youngest daughter, Alicia. Her lack of enthusiasm eventually pointed us in the direction of the “pretty houses” along the Elbe River. After the short, self-guided walk we headed back to their house for a round of waters and our goodbyes.
On our way back to the hostel we stopped at the St. Michaelis Church to take panoramas of the city from the steeple and to find a bite to eat. After being rejected by multiple restaurants due to the fact that we had no reservations, Heather commented, “economical crisis my ass.” Eventually we ended up in a small Italian place, shared noodles, salad, pizza and tiramisu.
We’re back in the hostel. We have a new roommate from California who seems nice. We’re beat and our feet really hurt. Tomorrow we’re headed towards Bremen for the day!
Debbie & Heather
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