Saturday in Hamburg

June 15, 2013

We had another very early morning arrival as the Silver Cloud motored into Hamburg harbor before 8:00 am having traveled 50 miles up the estuary of the Elbe River while we were sleeping.

Hamburg is Germany's largest seaport.  Miles of the river are lined with large cargo cranes. Container ships and tankers have docks and specialized facilities all along the river.  Silver Cloud docked at the still-under-construction port of Hafen City, and it being Germany we witnessed perhaps the silliest security precautions ever.  The ship's gangway was no more than 500 feet from the shell of a terminal building the Hamburg authorities were using as our cruise terminal.  Another ship, the Deutschland, had docked a few hundred feet further down the pier and its crew and passengers were using a second, completed, terminal building for exit and entry.  Passengers and crew from Silver Cloud were not allowed to walk to our terminal.  We were required to take a small shuttle bus the short 500 feet, then walk through the empty terminal past some guards to board the ship's chartered shuttle bus for the mile or so ride into the center of the city.

Michael and I had considered taking the fast train to Berlin and walk around Germany's capital city.  President Obama had inadvertently foiled that plan by planning his own visit to Berlin two days later.  All the main sights had been shut down for security purposes (Germans take their security seriously), so there was little point to such a trip.  Additionally, Michael was beginning to suffer from a cold and did not feel up to a grand adventure.

A ninety-minute ride on the hop-on, hop-off sightseeing bus seemed a good idea.  The narration was mostly in German with occasional statements in English for our benefit. Our tour guide, a fast-talking young woman, narrated the sights in a most depreciating way.  She made fun of the male pedestrians in the red light district and went on enthusiastically about various kinds of food served in the local restaurants.  It was just as well we only half understood the German narration and she spared us the inane comments and rude jokes in the English version. 

The sights themselves, or at least the selection chosen by the tour bus company, were not as impressive as I expected.  We weren't concerned about the various celebrities who lived or had stayed in the expensive homes by the lake, nor the bankrupt luxury hotel that caused our tour guide much merriment.  We did enjoy seeing the opera houses and public buildings as well as several distinctive neighborhoods. The "Rathouse" or town hall was magnificent.  Hamburg has seven or eight impressive churches that have been rebuilt since World War II, and we saw a small row of houses built originally in hanseatic times and rebuilt many times since.

Hamburg comes across as a thoroughly modern city with some history but not a must see destination.  Most of it was destroyed in the last World War, and the new construction seemed unimaginative.