Hamburg

It seemed such a long way away when we left Prague almost 1000km ago. I’ve booked a hotel on the edge of town just 10 km from here ,so we can have a day sightseeing .

Ivan and Niggy got up early to make us breakfast. *A hard boiled egg and several bread rolls with lots of meat and cheese seem to be the normal breakfast in this part of Germany.*

It was just 200metres back to the bikeway. *Still a continuation of the railway line*. It’s warming up already so we start stripping

Of course I’m always interested in a boat for sale. This one was immaculately restored and selling for $10,000 which I thought compared very well with New Zealand prices

The biggest downside though was all the marinas are upstream of the locks which you must pass through to get to the open sea

And as in Holland, getting flooding rivers out into the ocean without them flooding the land is just half the problem. The other challenge is to stop storm surges from the North Sea going back the other way ( and also flooding the land ) Every outlet needs surge gates like these

So by 9.00am we were at our hotel hoping to store our bikes and bags. 3pm is the normal check in time. To our surprise the receptionist gave us our room keys and told us to move in

Booking .com had upgraded us to the deluxe suite as a little bonus . “To hell with sightseeing “said Christine, when she saw our room ,I’m going to read my book and have a lazy day. I wanted to check out the neighbourhood so we shot off to find a coffee shop first.

This was an almost 100% Turkish area. Even our hotel. They always have a good mix of shops so we bought underwear in one ,to replace some of the many things we have left behind us in various hotels

I decided on a haircut. I tried to explain that I usually get a clipper cut ,6 on top (as I pointed to the top of my head) and a 3 or 4 on the sides. ( gesturing again)

HOLY CRAP ! He caught the bit about number 3 and went straight up and over the top leaving a mown strip that resembled freshly cut hay. After the initial shriek, I could see the funny side so he carried on denuding me.

$15. It feels good anyway. They seem to all be speaking Turk and it’s a nice change to be getting value for money again.

Turkish lentil soup for lunch ( love it ). With the bread and salad, €5.

And the Chai is usually free with a meal

As usual we’ve watched the second stage of the Tour de France ( which we love ) but re-runs of Hogans heroes I can definitely do without. It tells you something of the Germans sense of humour though. Watching Hogan taking the Micky out of the Germans. All in German of course

It’s another short day tomorrow so we’ll definitely have a good look at the famous parts of Hamburg on our way out

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Published by Wallis Don