Have you ever.....

 

We had a lovely time today in Hamburg, the 10^th largest sea port in the world processing 12 million containers per year and with a growth rate of 15% a year in ship traffic. Hamburg has been a member of the Hanseatic League for the last 823 years, making it a very old commercial city in Europe. Hamburg is all about trade, the architecture, the make-up of the city, its neighbourhoods everything says trade, banking, shipping. It is a fascinating city of 1.7 million people of which 420 citizens bringing in 400 million euros per year in income alone. The neighbourhood of Lake Alster is impressive with its beautiful parks and grand villas. The old brick warehouse neighbourhood has been revitalize and turned into new offices and houses set amongst canals on the sea port, a must see neighbourhood. The tide in Hamburg is said to be 3.5 meters high which by itself is impressive.

The Rathaus of Hamburg or Regional Parliament, just a small snapshot the actual building is much larger.

We visited the Rathaus, which is also the seat of the regional parliament, a grand building in the Wilhelmine style, we had an excellent meal in their restaurant Parlament, see www.parlament-hamburg.de

The speciality is pickled herring, I really liked it and ate a whole plate by myself. Upon our return by coach to the Kiel canal to join up with our boat who had taken all day to travel from Brunsbuttel to Kiel Holtenau we arrived on the wrong side of the canal, so we backtracked to the other side. Only to find our ship passing us by, so we stalked it for 3 km until it finally stopped at the last lock before the open sea. Have you ever stalked a 180 meter long, 30,277 ton ship going 5 km per hour in a canal. It was hilarious, as the captain was signalling to go a little further up the dock and the other passengers on board looking down where joking and the local German Firemen band was playing for the enjoyment of all those who had stayed on board that day to enjoy a bar-b-q. Finally the ship stopped and all of us (90 passengers) got back on board.

Azamara Journey finally stopped for us.

Tomorrow its Copenhagen and W is already doing is Danny Kay impersonation, you know the song about Copenhagen in the movie musical Hans Christian Andersen. I think the Cruise director Eric on board wants to hire him to sing in the Star Dust Lounge on board.