Germany and Denmark 2024

This holiday slot in our diaries had been planned as another sailing trip on Trinovante, intended to be Orkney to Shetland via Fair Isle, but Su and John finally decided to hang up their sailing boots. We briefly contemplated heading north anyway, but in the end decided to head east and link together a number of places we’d wanted to visit, in some cases for quite a while.

Day 1 – arrival in Halle (Saale)

The attractive Marktplatz with its Roten Turm (Red Tower), built between 1418 and 1506 as part of the market church.
Some good schnitzel was an objective of this trip, and we’d booked a table at a schnitzel restaurant months in advance – an amazing array of schnitzel options
And despite being rather full of schnitzel, Kaiserschmaren afterwards was compulsory too

Day 2 – Ziegelwiese parkrun

At one stage, Ziegelwiese parkrun in Halle had been on the target list to help complete the alphabet of parkrun names, but we ended up ticking off our “Z” with Zuiderpark in The Hague last year. But the attraction of the idea remained (and a good start on the second alphabet), especially in conjunction with the opportunity for a schnitzel restauarant. So Saturday morning saw us leaving our apartment and making our way across Halle to Ziegelwiese park, located on a island between the main channel of the Saale river and a mill stream.

The river Saale
Lucy on one of the two laps of Ziegelwiese park
Passing a lock on the Saale
It was a small parkrun by most UK standards, but a friendly welcome and quite a few stayed to the end to welcome us across the line
With our all-inclusive ticket, after a light lunch in Saale, we took a deliberately circuitous railway journey from Halle, travelling via Erfurt and Leinefelde to get to Nordhausen railway station
Our hotel for the next two nights
where we had schnitzel

Day 3 – Harz railway to The Brocken

Our reason for coming to Nordhausen for two nights was to travel on the Harz railway, today to the summit of The Brocken.

An early morning view of Nordhausen Nord railway station, during a run around Nordhausen
Later, the locomotive has reversed up to form our train.
The open platforms between carriages were a good spot to enjoy the views, and to feel and smell the smoke from the steam locomotive.
Drei Annen Hohne station where we stopped and waited for a train coming up from Wernigerode, before we reversed direction for the final climb
The Brocken Railway is one of three that make up the Harz narrow-gauge network
The Brocken, at 1141m above sea level, is the summit of the Harz and the highest point in northern Germany. It is foggy for 300 days a year, and today was one of those days.
Stephen on a windy, wet and foggy summit
Not far to London.

We had lunch in the restaurant at the top before catching the train back down, emerging below the cloud into gradually drier weather. A great outing – a shame about the fog, but you have to be lucky, planning months in advance, to get one of the few clear/sunny days.

Day 4 – Nordhausen to Hamburg

Lucy runs through a rose garden at the top of the hill in Nordhausen – we took the tram to the far end of the line and from there ran back to the hotel.

The original plan had been to use the third of the three lines of the Harz railways to take us to Quedlinburg, there to pick up the mainline railway. But there had been timetable changes which left us with a rail-replacement bus for part of the journey, and already another part was due to be diesel rather than steam, so in the end we decided to save a few euros and get the DB trains west from Nordhausen to Northeim, Hannover and Hamburg, where we walked to our nearby hotel. We found a good steakhouse for dinner in the evening.

Day 5 – Miniatur Wunderland

Making our way from the hotel to Miniatur Wunderland
We last visited here in February 2014, and were keen to explore the new areas
And for a change, schnitzel for dinner

Day 6 – Hamburg

We started the day with a run along the canals and docks (or remnants of them) of Hamburg
Later that morning we visited Chocoversum
There was a tasty shop
We made our own chocolate bars
Popping into the fridge to set, ready for us to take home later
And had a guided tour around the history and practicalities of chocolate-making
Some good slogans!
After lunch we went on a boat tour, across the North Elbe and into around some of the huge docks to its south
The Elbphilharmonie Hamburg concert hall
Floating dry docks
We went through this odd lock – odd because we travelled freely “the long way round” either side of it, without any further locks. I think its primary purpose is to allow passage while avoiding strong currents flowing through, and presumably as a result there can be small water level differences at certain states of the tide or weather
A Russian oligarch’s seized yacht
We then walked through the dock areas to reach the fascinating International Maritime Museum
There was a huge amount to absorb over many floors, and we had a somewhat whistle-stop tour, but still got to see a lot
This hanging model is difficult to get the scale of – until you look to the right of the picture and see some of the multiple floors of the museum. It is the Wappen von Hamburg II, a convoy ship of the Hamburg Admiralty, commissioned in 1722, and its role was to protect Hamburg shipping routes from pirates.
A hugely impressive Lego model of the Queen Mary II, 6.9m long and made from about 780,000 pieces

Day 7 – Lübeck

We had a day trip to Hamburg to Lübeck.

Holstentor, as we walk from the railway station – it lies on an island between two channels of the river, leading us into the Old Town. The city gate has been guarding the approach since 1464.
At the Niederegger Marzipan Museum
Cake at the Niedegger café
They have quite a range
The Niederegger shop
After marzipan shopping, Lucy went for a swim in the Krähenteich
Walking through the delightful streets of the Old Town
Time for a game of mini golf
The delightful Stradttrave waterway
We stopped for a marzipan ice cream before heading back to the railway station

Day 8 – Hamburg to Copenhagen

Stephen started the day with a run
The Außenalster lake is about 7km round, and together with the run to and from the hotel made a pleasant 10km
It’s a popular route but there was plenty of space too

After we’d checked out of the hotel, we went on a open-top bus tour of the city, seeing at least fleetingly some of the sights we hadn’t seen in person – though we don’t appear to have taken any photos.

We then caught our train from Hamburg to Copenhagen – fortunately we got our booked seats but there were a lot of people standing as the previous service had been cancelled.

From the balcony of our hotel in Copenhagen, we can just see the sea
An evening walk to the sea reveals the Øresundsbroen
Scouting out the route of tomorrow morning’s parkrun

Day 9 – Copenhagen

We started the day with parkrun, adding another country to those we’ve visited
Getting ready for the start
Afterwards, Lucy went for a swim, while Stephen contented himself with paddling
We went for a boat trip around the canals of Copenhagen, which was really interesting and beautiful in its variety of scenes
The Little Mermaid is very popular – so popular that its difficult to see much attraction in being there
Our boat reflected in a building – almost time to say farewell to Denmark for a while. We had a good steak and then caught the train to the airport and our flight home.

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