Wanderung 32

Drifting down the Donau; Edging up the Elbe

March - April 2017


 

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Sunday, April 23: Hamburg Elbphilharmonie and Bahrenfeld

This day we were going to do things with Judson. Our first item was to see the recently finished Elbphilharmonie (English: Elbe Philharmonic building) on the Elbe River in the historic Harbour City Area. It is supposed to be a new iconic sight of Hamburg rivaling the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia. Detlef and Susanne decided to come along with Judson, so we all were going to meet at 9 a.m. and whoever got there first would secure the entry tickets, which are timed and limited each day.

Taking the U-Bahn from Ohlsdorf we got there before 9 and fortunately arrived before the rain started, so we procured the entry tickets. Detlef, Susanne, and Judson were driving and, unfortunately, this was the day of the Hamburg Marathon, which meant that lots of streets were closed and traffic backed up on the rest of them! Our entrance tickets were luckily stamped for anytime between 9 and 10:30 a.m., so we settled back to wait. They finally gave up with driving, parked the car at Hauptbahnhof and then wallked the rest of the way while we waited in front and admired the flashing designs projected around the ticket window.

We all walked into the building and up the grand staircase and into the expansive foyer. Unfortunately we were not allowed to go into any of the music halls.

There was an outside walk all around and you got great pictures of the new Harbor City area and the old embarkation area, or Landungsbruecke. When we get back to Hamburg, we have to splurge on tickets for a concert so that we can see the interior of one of those performance halls. However, we would have to arrange that well in advance, since right now all their performances are completely sold out until the fall.

After we were done at the Elbphilharmonic building, Detlef and Susanne both had to go to work. Since we had eine Gruppen Tageskarte or "Group Day Ticket" which would cover up to 5 people, they went with us on the train back to where their car was parked, and then the three of us continued on the train network to Bahrenfeld. There we walked over to Friedrich Ebert Hof 18 and discussed what Monika's childhood there was like.

Judson even remembered the playground at the end of the street where he and Martin had played when they visited around 1979 or 80. We curled around to visit the Altona 93 soccer club field. Monika was surprised that the stands had not been unpdated in any way since the 1970s. But we later found out from Detlef, that any improvements would both trigger a tax reassessment, increasing their taxes, and also subject the club to a host of modern rules and regulations that they had been Grandfathered out of. One such rule was a noise mitigation regulation that would force them to erect sound barriers around the field so that their neighbors (who had of course bought or rented their places with the full knowledge of the soccer field), would not be disturbed by the noise from the games!

We then cut over to the Kreuzkirche where Monika had attended church and had her confirmation. From the church it was a short dogleg over to the cemetery where Monika's parents are buried, and we payed our respects there.


 

We continued over to Altona and found a gyro shop for lunch, but my back was starting to hurt, so we all returned to the Armedia to rest a bit before zipping over to Heinke and Gustl's place for Kaffeetrinken. To wind up the day we took Judson to Hauptbahnhof so that he could take his train to Dresden--we are always curiously sad to say Good Bye to one of our adult children--then we took the S1 back to Ohlsdorf to the Armedia and collapsed for the rest of the evening.


 

Monday, April 24: Bying T-shirts for the Grandchildren in St. Pauli

We switched hotels to a more centrally located Holiday Inn Express, which took most of the morning, and then took the U3 back down to the St Pauli and Reeperbahn area. Our main goal for our afternoon excursion was to get nice T shirts for Judson to give to his children, but that turned out to be more difficult than we had expected. The Reeperbahn is an official Red Light district and has plenty of souvenir shops, but very little of the available merchandise was suitable for young grandchildren! After a lot of searching, we finally found a nice T-shirt for each child, but by then my back was once again sore and so we went back to our hotel for the night.



Copyright 2017 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt


 

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