Saturday – 15 June 2013 – Hamburg, Germany
After dinner on Thursday, Barbara and I ventured back out into Amsterdam to see this most wonderful of cities all lit up after dark. As predicted, it never got dark enough for the lights to come on. But we did get to use our transit passes once more and had a really nice walk back to the ship.
Did I mention that Amsterdam is a very nice place to spend a day or two? Maybe more.
We cast off the downtown Amsterdam pier just before 8 am yesterday morning. The commuter trains were going all out (well actually in) to the iconic downtown Central Station. We sailed downstream on the Amstel River for almost two hours before reaching the set of locks to the North Sea. The Captain threaded our ship skillfully in a stiff breeze into the barely wider lock chamber. As the tide was coming in, we were RAISED about a meter up to sea level, the Netherlands truly being the "low country" as most of the country is below sea level. The levee industry is huge in this place. So are the levees.
After the lock, as we entered the North Sea after passing some spectacular beaches. It occurred to me that since crossing the English Channel late Sunday evening, yesterday's afternoon and transit along the Holland and German coastline to the mouth of the Elbe River was the first true ocean we were sailing on during this mostly river cruise. We spotted a cargo ship delivering wind turbine propellers, a most usual sight, but never actually felt any movement of the ship as the seas were quite calm.
We entered the very industrial Elbe River about midnight this morning and sailed the 138 kilometers upstream to as the tour brochure claimed, "The Hanseatic Gem of Hamburg". We were on the first shuttle bus to Rathaus Squre, the center of the old walled city. The town hall is indeed spectacular, by far the nicest thing we saw all morning as the cruise port is a huge construction site.
We made our way through the undistinguished downtown shopping district to the 1906 railway station (as is our wont) and discovered that a "hop on/hop off" red bus was about to leave on a pretty comprehensive tour of the city. Again, here we saved about $120 by not purchasing the virtually identical ship's tour. Good thing as Hamburg was kaputmachen pretty completely during WW II. Except for the aforementioned Rathaus, everything else was either reconstructed from rubble or replaced in the 1950s by, uh, 1950s style buildings.
We did see a couple of down and out Hanseatic style facades and the restored 1700s riverfront warehouses, but otherwise this probably pretty functional city doesn't appear to me to be a major "must see" European destination.
What made the tour memorable, however, was the curious live narration. The young woman who was the upper deck guide on our bus presented the sights in a style that can best be described as over the top, demeaning, and histrionic. Quite a combo. She made Jay Leno's style of put down humor seem very tame as she described every snack product or confection of the area as if she had not eaten in two or three years, pointed out fairly nondescript large houses as "billionaire's palaces", and went completely gaga over the two kind of sad looking urban lakes that are the pride of the Hamburgerites.
I expected a bit of pandering when the bus diverted its circle tour to take in the famous St. Pauli red light district. But our fraulein went completely non-linear as she proceeded to make fun of every male on the sidewalk, mocking them to the passengers, and as they looked up and noticed the bus passengers hollering at them, she tried to embarrass them further as we went by. Oddly enough, St. Pauli is also a restaurant and legitimate hotel district. So many of the people on the street were shop keepers, waiters, or tourists. Thinking that they must know this docent, some of the shopkeepers waved back, and the mostly all German tourists on our bus laughed uncontrollably and snapped lots of pictures.
At the end of the 90 minute circuit of the city, the guide announced that a "coin plate was available for any rewards for enjoying my narration." I thought about pocketing two euros. Seemed about right.
