Melissa and her husband Marcus visited Hamburg and they spent three days in the lovely city. This is a copy of their blogpost on The Diary of a Jewellery:
Day Two
The Heikotel must be one of the quietest hotels we have ever stayed in, so consequently, we woke up on day two rested and ready for the new day ahead. After getting showered and dressed we made it down to breakfast.
The breakfast was a continental breakfast with a wide selection of cereals, yoghurts, cooked meats, cheese, bread, pastries and fresh fruit salad as well as boiled and scrambled eggs. It had everything you needed really and it was all tasty, and well prepared.
It’s always interesting to see how breakfast differs in various countries and I was surprised to see about 4 different types of potato salad. The Germans obviously like their potato salad, that’s for sure!
Our plan for today was to go on a boat tour, then head over to the Minatur Wunderland in the afternoon, the huge model railway museum. So we headed down to the port area on the U-Bahn.
The port area was really interesting and before long we were boarding our boat for the classic harbour tour. The hour tour took in the sites such as the historic Speicherstadt warehouse district, and the Hafencity area. The company Barkassen Meyer gave us an English audio guide which was very useful as otherwise, the tour would have been just in German
We floated past the Elphiliharmonie, the multi-million euro concert hall recently opened. I must admit it really was breathtaking and shone proudly in the sun. I can imagine the acoustics would be amazing if you saw a concert here.
What was interesting was seeing the mix of boats, from touring boats to old fashion yachts, large cargo ships to luxury yachts. It’s a real working harbour, the largest port in Germany and it shows.
After the tour we stopped for a spot of lunch on the harbour, I scoffed down the fish in batter and potato salad in no time, which seems to be one of the local dishes.
Now it was time to do something we had wanted to do for ages – go to Minatur Wunderland! Minatur Wunderland is the largest model railway in the world.and was started by twin brothers in 2000. Now it has over 6 miles of track including an airport with planes taking off and landing, the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas as well as an extensive German area.
As you can see the attention to detail is amazing. We both thought it was a great day out for old and young alike and I would allow 2 hours to see everything.
So back to our hotel to freshen up before going out.
That evening we ate at a restaurant we looked up on TripAdvisor called Pittarello. This modern Italian restaurant was smart, upmarket and served excellent food, highly recommended.
Tired but after a great day sightseeing we walked back to the hotel looking forward to what Hamburg had to offer on our last day tomorrow.
