(ALL) Wet ,wet in Hamburg

May 14/07 7:51 p.m. The Weather Pixie: Niederrhein

Had a hunch,that the weather would not be so great for our trip, never mind, at least it has not been too cold on top,always have to count your blessings!

Now, from the beginning: Our train ride from Düsseldorf to Hannover, simply great, relaxing, comfortable,only...about 5 minutes late and gone was our train to Hamburg and with it of cse. our seat reservations. We were lucky however to have a follow up train pretty fast and it was not packed, so we had seats again and our arrival time in Hamburg had been almost correct. The Hotel, very nice (have a look) and after unpacking took the opportunity to visit the spa area ,had a nice swim and visited the whirlpool.

At night we had dinner at that excellent Fischereihafen Restaurant,guess what we had? fish,fish fish! We were lucky,that our taxi could still take us right up to the frontdoor, on account of the port day roads in the vast vicinity had been closed off and we had our doubts what we would be in for the following night,when we had to board our sailing bark for the river cruise. And right we were, we had to push through milling crowds of people for about half a mile,to find our ship - which does not sound much,only my companion with his walking difficulties had been in for hard times. When we finally discovered our ship (had past by it first,because it had been dwarfed by one of those enormous Russian sailing ships) we were not allowed to board it before all 70 passengers were soaking wet by an enormous downpour, accordingly the crowd evaporated enough steam to get the boat going without sails. Well, people took it with humour and a welcome drink and later on a very nice buffet dinner helped. So we cruised around on the river and later on returned to the mooring place for the fireworks. A nice and noisy event!

Then came the hard part,trying to get to the tram station (no fat chance for a taxi) and we had to push our way through thousands of people, stepping on the one or other pizza and "bratwurst". We finally made it and even managed to get up to one of the ticket machines.By the time we reached our hotel,we were kind of beat.

Next morning,after a leasurely breakfast,we left for the railway station,there companion discovered he had left his treasured cap on the shelf in our room. So back with a taxi he went,to pick it up. Cost him € 7, the little cap excursion. Fortunately there was enough time.

Then we boarded our train,which,approaching Hannover developed into a real slow poke,so we had about one minute left to run from platform 12 to platform 4 , stairs down,stairs up, and that with all our luggage. Before the doors closed we were pushed by the conductor into the train,never mind the right waggon,and it turned out that the train was to be seperated at the next station, so we had to make another run for it to pass the two engines and to get into our train,where we had to walk through the whole length to get to our reserved seats. - The Deutsche Bundesbahn likes to run trains,but obiously does not care so much for passengers. - Never again a train ride,where I have to change trains.

We were picked up by our daughter at the station and later on went to her place to pick up Herr Hund, who turned summersaults seeing us, we got some good wine and a nice dinner.

Great ending of a,after all, interesting trip.