Handsome Hamburg

Hamburg Hauptbahnhof  (specially for Tom)

I'm writing this in Paris, or Disneyland, as I am coming to call it.  I know it sounds snobbish, but trippers are on the increase thanks to cheap European flights, and they fly out for the weekend for a lot of football chanting, drinking, and for some weird reason, hen parties in Amsterdam.  To our countries' shame, the later in the evening it gets, the more the language becomes English.  It's not a good look, or maybe I should say it's not a good sound.   Of course, it is not just the English speakers who have taken over this alcotourism.  I'm sure that it's the same in London. (Buckingham Palace (tick) Trafalgar Square (tick)) Paris (Eiffel Tower (tick)  Arc de Triomphe (tick)). and so on, until it is now impossible to view any art gallery of note.  I paid my 17 euros and waited for half an hour to go round the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.  I couldn't manage it.  I walked out of the place without seeing a single van Gogh.  I never even attempted the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.  There were just too many people.  I doubt if I shall even try to go to the Musee d'Orsay while I'm in Paris, let alone the Louvre.  Sometimes I wonder if I'm looking at the Eiffel Tower or Blackpool Tower, such is the huge increase in trippers that I have noticed over the last five years.  Many people suggested that I would see vast changes with increases in refugees.  In fact, I didn't see any of that, and there appeared to be no increase in down and outs, who have always been pests; and cheap con men that you'd like to swat. 

But there are towns, even cities, that have escaped the trippers.  One such place is Hamburg in Northern Germany.  (But why am I telling you this?)  For complicated reasons, I had an informal exchange with a German student and stayed for four weeks.  Happy times!  Although it was 54 years ago, as soon as I got off the train from Berlin, I knew I was home.  I could live in that beautiful city in a heartbeat.  It is still a working city, a colossal trading giant, (who hasn't seen Hapag Lloyd shipping containers?) but cultural in the Arts and Music as well, the home of Brahms, Telemann, and even Bach for a short time, and it should not be forgotten that the Beatles first made it in Hamburg and it is situated amongst smaller picturesque towns in the area like Kiel and Lubeck.

If you can, go to Hamburg before the trippers do their worst.  I think you'll like it!

One of the canals in the old Commercial District, now a World Heritage Site

 

The Golden Hour on a May Evening in the City Centre

Dutch Road Etiquette

There is none.

First of all, let's get Amsterdam traffic in perspective.  It makes Sydney's Pennant Hills Road look like a country lane.  Let's take the basics and work up, and I warn you there will be a practical as well  as a theory test at the end of this entry 

Let's imagine a zebra crossing going east west across a northbound southbound road.  You set off in Australia, and the northbound traffic stops.  After two or even three lanes crossed, you do the same for the other three southbound lanes of traffic until you reach the sanctuary of the far footpath.  If the crossing is controlled by lights, everything stops while pedestrians hurry across the tarmac.  Once the road has been crossed, the motor vehicles start once more, but not until after the lights have changed.

Not in Amsterdam.  Ignoring the fact that the sun goes clockwise and they (in theory) drive on the right, a much more interesting scenario develops.  This is what happens on the Amsterdam Pennanthillsstraat.

Looking north, next to the buildings, is a footpath of variable width (Omni directional)  It is usually (but not always), paved with 15 cm  concrete tiles.  Next, separated by either a white line or a low kerb is the southbound cycleway.  This is often made of the same 15 cm tiles, but set diagonally.  This is about 3 metres wide.  THERE DOES NOT APPEAR TO BE A SPEED LIMIT here and all sorts of two wheel traffic from motor scooters to tandems use this narrow way.  A larger kerb (or a white line) separates the cycle path from the two lanes of southbound traffic.  Then come the south and northbound tram tracks (sometimes with tram stop platforms).  This space is usually used by trams travelling in opposite directions, but sometimes buses and taxis use them too!  It's a bit disconcerting to be in a taxi with trams front and back, with another tram travelling in the opposite direction, boxing you in.

Then there's more of the same in the opposite direction.  Two lanes of cars and trucks travelling north, and the northbound cycleway, then the pavement and safety.

If you want to cross the road you can use a zebra, but you should know that these are really pedestrian avoidance zones.  While you are crossing, other vehicles up to and including 4 car trams, will cross the crossing in front and behind you.  If you use crossings with lights, it is unusual for all four sets of lights to be green at once, and again they seem to be advisory, with traffic going round pedestrians.  Sometimes the cycle ways and/or the tramways, go across to one side of the highway, for no apparent reason.

The overall result is that of a sinuous ballet, and somehow, somehow, nobody gets scathed.

Now you are all dying to know what you have to do if you are a cyclist turning left in front of a tram turning right.  It's actually quite easy, and that is your practical for today . . .                                               

Test

An efficiency study

My ordeal with Fisch

Not going into any detail save to say that I spent a turbulent night.  I got up early went to the lobby,and waited for Stephanie, our blonde Teutonic receptionist (with orange shoes, but I digress.

I told her I ought to get checked over by a doctor, as food poisoning can be nasty.

Himmeltag! she said.  There are no doctors.  This didn't seem to be the German Way.

You will have to go to the Krankenhaus (Hospital).

Which is the nearest?  

Altona.  I will call you a taxi, it will be one minute.  And it was.

17 euros later we reached the Hospital.  A young female doctor said:

Your Englisch Dokuments!

I looked mystified. EU passport and NHS number (YB 042812A)

I need card.

Nummer

Karte

Nummer

Karte

How much?  160 euros ($200) 

No way!

I waited by the hospital gates.  There were no taxis, only a young girl called Sibylla, who knows Australia better than I do.  "From Cooktown in the North we go, but we cannot get across Kimberley without 4 wheel drive!"  Sibylla guided me onto the correct bus and then the S Bahn railway to Landungbrucken near where I was staying.  Stephanie had had a difficult time with a couple of visitors.  I went to the cakeshop where I had a latte and one or two other small things.

Then I had an idea which cost me only 3 euros.  I got a box, wrote on it "Glucklicke Himmel Tag!" had a strawberry slice put into it and gave it to Stephanie. She was delighted.

One never knows when one might need another palazzo for the night! :) 

Slovakian Sunshine

What a lot I've missed out!

This is my bar fridge in Vienna (Wien) taken on the morning I left to go to Prague.  No I hadn't drun k it dry.  The total contents was one bottle of water.  "Did you have anything from the minibar, sir?"  "No I left the water where it was."

I had so much fun in Bratislava and Praha, that I left my blog on hold.  (That sounds deliberate, actually I was lazy)

I crossed the road to Vienna's main station and looked for a booking office.  Eventually, underneath a sign that said "International Trains" I found a ticket machine where for about 11 Aussie dollars return, I could go from the capital of Austria to the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava.  They are so close, they share the same international airport, Schwechat.a

I'm not going to bore you with chapter and verse, but merely show you some pictures of this small capital.  You will notice it doesn't have . . . a lot of tourists shoving each other around.  It is a lovely unspoiled walled Central European city.  If ever I get back to Europe, Bratislava will probably be on the itinerary.

the railway station

This is only 40 km from one of the major European capitals, and ancient royal city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Wien (Vienna).  Bratislava has to be one of the quietest places under the sun.  Absolutely lovely.  And they use the Euro, not the pesky Ceski Krona.

More horrible ghosts

This is the last blog entry from Berlin from me, as I move to happier places.

My lovely hotel is situated in the old Jewish Quarter on Friedrichstrasse.  The very large breakfast room has lovely old buildings on one side, but 1960s stuff on the other three sides.  With the Manchester Arena Outrage fresh in my mind (15 killed as I write this), it made me wonder how many people had died where I was eating my muesli.

First, the children were "taken on holiday" to be followed shortly afterwards by their parents.  Then came the Berlin bombings which caused firestorms so great that people died because all the oxygen had been used up.  Then the Russians arrived, who raped and pillaged everyone and everything in their way.

How many people had died where I was eating my muesli?

All of them.

Today I'm off to the station to reserve my seat on the Berlin to Hamburg ICE, the German high speed train, that will take less than two hours to complete the journey.

Back in 1963, when I fell in love with Hamburg, a train journey to Berlin would have taken seven hours, if you were lucky, and held a passport, a visa, and a change of currency.  Now it's 250 to 300 km/h all the way.

Some things change for the better.