Day 3 - On to Hamburg

Monday we traveled to Hamburg.  It is a bout a 5-6 hour bus ride with 'Pay for Pee' stops every few hours. 

We are still a bit fascinated with the 'Pay for Pee' process.  The picture on the right is at the kiosk entrance to the restrooms at a stop off the highway.  The kiosk takes money or credit card. If you take your receipt it can be credited for any purchase you make at the stop. What a great business model, if you pay to pee you are motivated to buy a coffee or anything just to feel like you got to 'Pee for Free'. I am thinking of how I might start this business at home in the USA. 

You will have to ask June about the wet toilet seats at the rest stops. 

The German countryside looks very much like the USA, it is not overly populated and there are wind farms in the open spaces. 

Before WWII Hamburg was the largest shipping port in the world. During the war it was reduced to rubble but has mostly be rebuilt and today it is still a major shipping port. 

We arrived in downtown Hamburg on schedule and Vanessa gave us a short introduction. Hamburg is a wealthy city and they clearly show it off.

The town hall is extravagant, it looks more like a cathedral than a town building. 

The inside is also opulent and looks like a church. 

This is a picture of the statue in the courtyard of the town hall....yeah the town hall. 

We walked around downtown Hamburg and took in the sites, the place is very alive with people, swans and traffic. The views are very nice. 

This past weekend there was a Harry Potter Doubles gathering in Hamburg, over 7000 Harry Potters were wandering the streets. I wish we had let Travis, Emily's boy friend, know about it :-).   

There was at least one of the characters still 'floating' around. 

After walking for about an hour, we stopped for beer and ice cream...a great combination. 

There are pedal bikes, pedal taxis and even pedal UPS delivery vehicles...it seems Hamburg is trying to go green. 

After a few hours downtown we headed for the port area, a short bus ride. We boarded a tour boat to go out in the port and see the cargo operations. It sounded a bit boring but it was fascinating. I took way more pictures than I should but everything was of such a large scale it was hard to get your head around it. 

This is a picture of one of the larger ships, it holds 22,000 containers. The entire unloading operation has 24 employees, we saw no one anywhere near the boats. The robots can unload a ship of this size in 48 hours. (Maybe someone can explain the problem in CA during covid when the ships could not be unloaded...Hmm). 

This is a picture of a container being picked off a small cargo ship. I was trying to get pictures but the (automation) robots go so fast it is hard to catch them in flight. 

There were other sights that were worth seeing, the most expensive being the Elbphiharmonie Concert Hall. It is a an embarrassment for the Germans who pride themselves in precision and engineering. This building was forecast to cost $70M and open in 2010, it did not open until 2017 and cost close to $800M.  

After the harbor tour we headed for the red light district of Hamburg because this is where the Beatles played in the St. Paul quarter at the Indra Club, before they made it! Over a two year period they played here a lot. 

The plaque on the building reads (translated by Vanessa): "On August 17,1960 the BEATLES entered the INDRA Stage.  It was their first Germany Engagement and the start of a great career."

The street itself is seedy...it is the red light district.  Vanessa did a special head count to make sure all the men made it back on the bus. 

Some of our new friends (Nate, Lisa, Todd and Joan) from Ohio had some fun being the fab 4. 

We made our way to our hotel around 7PM and all met in the restaurant for a group dinner. It was another long day but full of experiences. 

Tomorrow we head for Berlin.