{"id":6061,"date":"2024-07-08T20:33:05","date_gmt":"2024-07-08T20:33:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/?p=6061"},"modified":"2024-07-09T05:14:18","modified_gmt":"2024-07-09T05:14:18","slug":"day-7-monday-july-8-hiking-around-and-around-hamburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/2024\/07\/08\/day-7-monday-july-8-hiking-around-and-around-hamburg\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 7: Monday, July 8 ~ Hiking around (and around) Hamburg"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We got up fairly early today so we could have an early (but sumptuous) breakfast and go hiking. It was a gorgeous day with temperatures in the mid-70s, sunny with a few scattered clouds and perfect for a nice long walk in the country. So we packed water and “belegte Br\u00f6tchen” (rolls with various cheeses and deli meats and cucumbers), and a thermos of coffee for Andrea and Peter, and took the bus, the subway, and a commuter train to the outskirts of Hamburg, to a train station called Meckelfeld, and then hiked about 5 miles around one lake and along two others, along a small tributary of the River Elbe called Seeve. It looks unspectacular and urban on a map, but it was actually a beautiful, rural hike through marshlands and along lakes (although this landscape was very much man-made, created when the giant freight railway station also visible on the map were built). We took a break for lunch, watched waterfowl and saw a European lark, which made Andrea very happy (they have become quite rare), and then got back onto a train at the next train station, in Maschen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our hike, in relation to the Elbe (Hamburg’s main river)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The lake we hiked around (called “See im gro\u00dfen Moor,” Lake in the Great Moor)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Marsh near the Seeve<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Antje and Andrea in their happy place<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then we took the train back into Hamburg, and from the main station took the subway along my favorite route, aboveground along the entire length of the harbor, and to Feldstrasse in the St. Pauli district, famous for its nightlife (including a red-light districts), its funky stores (we had coffee in a lovely outdoor cafe), a soccer stadium for a beloved Hamburg soccer team (St. Pauli) and the fairgrounds (“Hamburger Dom”) where currently everything is set up for massive outdoor viewing of the European soccer tournament. (Now wrapping up without the Germans in the mix.) But the reason we came here was more specific: Just three days ago, the “Green Bunker St. Pauli” opened after a decade of constructions. Shortly after the beginning of World War II, the Nazis built an ENORMOUS multi-story air raid shelter with massive air defense towers right here, and it’s been an eyesore ever since. The guns were taken off and destroyed, of course, but the tower was used for everything from apartments to conference rooms to metal band rehearsal space over the last 80 years. But now, a hotel and multi-tier roof garden adorns the top, open to the public for a fantastic view of all of downtown Hamburg. So we climbed up what is basically a gigantic spiral staircase, and took in the view and the landscaping–given that tearing the damn thing down was never really a viable option, definitely an original solution to making something interesting out of a Nazi-built WWII eyesore. The views were definitely amazing, and the people watching was fun too. Given that it only just opened, it was crowded even on a Monday afternoon. I cannot imagine how packed it was this past weekend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Green Bunker St. Pauli”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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View of the old TV tower<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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View of the Michel and the Elfie (Elbphilarmonie)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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View of the harbor (with an ad for viewing Europe cup soccer with T-Mobile–oh well)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Mark’s view of us as we reach the lawn at the top of the building<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
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View of the people at the top, complete with lawn at 150 feet \/ 50 m up.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Afterwards, we took the subway and bus back home, picked up a few groceries, and had salad, bread and cold cuts (“Abendbrot”) for dinner. We were all ravenous! We sat around for a while and digested food and impressions, and tossed around a few ideas for the next day, and we also traded a few messages with the kids in Lincoln–today, Apollo had a minor but important surgery on his arm and we tried to cheer him and his parents on as they dealt with that. Everything went well, thankfully. What a wonderful day! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We got up fairly early today so we could have an early (but sumptuous) breakfast and go hiking. It was a gorgeous day with temperatures in the mid-70s, sunny with a few scattered clouds and perfect for a nice long walk in the country. So we packed water and “belegte Br\u00f6tchen” (rolls with various cheeses … Continue reading “Day 7: Monday, July 8 ~ Hiking around (and around) Hamburg”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2024-germany","category-photos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6061"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6066,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6061\/revisions\/6066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}