Port #6: Hamburg

The town the ship ports in is called Kiel. Apparently their population swells from 200k to 1.2 mil every year in June when they hold a regatta. It's a lovely town, but my excursion is a bus tour through Hamburg. Nice enough, but tough to take pictures from a moving bus window. The issue is time. The bus ride from/to Kiel is 1.5 hours each way, and we always have to be back to the ship in time for it to leave. So the Hamburg Highlights were just whizzing by! We were able to get out and about for an hour in the shopping district.

Kiel, Germany

Container port, Hamburg

The Port of Hamburg is the third largest in Europe, and they move about 9 million containers per year. It is just container cranes as far as the eye can see. Hamburg is an expensive city, but also a rich city. It is considered the media capital of Germany. It is also the center of what was the Hanseatic League. So commerce and industry are quite comfortable matched to media and politics. The parliament building is back-to-back with the stock exchange. What could go wrong? Our first photo stop was St. Michael's.

Martin Luther, St. Michael's, Hamburg

Archangel Michael defeating Lucifer, St. Michael's, Hamburg

St. Michael's, Hamburg

Hamburg is also known as "The Venice of the North" because of the natural and man-made waterways. There are echoes of Amsterdam in the older architecture.

Canal, Hamburg

Ivy covered building, Hamburg

Rug dealers, Speicherstadt Warehouses (UNESCO Heritage Site), Hamburg

Speicherstadt Warehouses (UNESCO Heritage Site), Hamburg

Covered shopping in front of the Hamburg Rathaus (Parliament)

Hamburg Rathaus

Hamburg Rathaus

Shopping, swans near Hamburg Rathaus

Hauptbahnhof (central station), Hamburg

Snoop Dogg in Altona (upper-class neighborhood in N. Hamburg)

I also learned about the Reeperbahn. We drove through it. We saw the small street (Grosse Freiheit or "Big Freedom") where The Beatles were discovered, and giggled at the XXX-rated posters and billboards that serve to titillate the patrons of the famous red light district. We are, indeed, prudes when it comes to sins of the flesh.