Hamburg

On to Hamburg

We arrived early afternoon and was greeted by a creschendo of noises on the stellplatz which looked the only real option for us to stay overnight intending to use the S Bahn and bus to enter the city

Chief noise manufacturer was the continual procession of trains using a large iron bridge close by en route in to the industrial heartland of the area

Ok so we knew it would be busy but naively thought they would stop at night.......wrong!

Imagine my discomfort at finding a listing in another discarded stopovers book next morning showing the location of a new stellplatz over the Elbe even closer with.....little noise,. hey ho..

Yes.... its retail therapy time

Underground station at the university newly built with no customers. Minutes later we realised we were at the wrong location

Given that the city was flattened by the Allies there's no surprise we felt the place lacked character with few old historical buildings but a modern sprawling city with the usual infrastructure 

We had been spoilt with Berlin and Prague

So our best idea was to explore by boat as this is the 2nd busiest port in Europe and the tour boats are all the rage. 

Touristy enough...

So a tour of the huge dockyards it was....

Our initial anxiety soon left us and we were left in awe at the sheer scale of operations here

U-434, a rubber coated Soviet conventionally powered sub

Rubber means no radar footprint in case you were wondering

This was as near as we got to the well known smelly Fischmarkt

The Docklands Offices pointing out to the estuary and the sea which is around 80 miles away

Then a trip round the big boyz toyz stuff

Girlies move down the page.....

Big or what!

This to me is Art, yes I am strange

Check out the guy in the cabin on the loader

These thing fly up and down the quayside, around 10 operating in close proximity

One huge dry dock

This is the Elb-Philharmonie building under construction. 220 hotel rooms with 40 sunset facing condominiums already sold out

It will become one of the largest concert halls in the world

The windows are designed to shimmer like jewels in the sunlight, whatever that is....

Close by is what we think is the Portuguese and Spanish sector and we had a superb Tapas meal here

By the time we'd emerged the shops were shut, sorry Wifey

No shutters here just high priced jewellery on show to window lickers

Spotted these reminders of a seemingly distant past

I'm sure the Gaffer's car was never up to this standard

Concert Hall at night with 24 hr construction it seems

Trusty German efficiency with prediction times of buses

Just Central Station but I like these places architecturally

The sting in the tail was the bus driver dropping us off at the wrong home address...cheers. A 3 mile walk refreshed us ready for a night of train music

That bridge next morning with bizarrely placed urban sheep to boot...