Europe Day 1: Hamburg

The plan was simple. Last year it was Central Europe, this year it would be Eastern Europe.

We had a rough itinerary laid out, Hamburg, Berlin, then a few days with my brother and his family in Hiabach, then on the road again to the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, Switzerland and back to Frankfurt airport and home.

This year we also upgraded to a bigger car for highway driving, and it paid off immediately on the Autobahn. Lets just say I was suitably impressed.

The plane touched down at about 3pm local time and soon after we were on our way to Hamburg as planned.

The trip was 495 kms and we made it there in 3 and a .5 hours. We found a hotel right in the downtown area for 70 euros a night.

The harbour of Hamburg was having a birthday celebration and we were told that there was a big street party happening, so we hoped on the subway and went down to take a look. By the time we arrived the street fair was closed, but there were hundreds of people milling about at the waters edge waiting for something to happen.

We were finally able to figure out that the cruise ship, The Queen Mary 2 was in port, and what seemed like the entire city of Hamburg had come out to see it off. We thought there would be some sort of fireworks as well, but as it turns out, everyone was just there to see the Queen Mary 2 leave port and wave good-bye. Seriously.



The next morning we did a little walking around the city ...

.... and then took a harbour tour.

Then, it was off to Berlin.