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Our evening view at
Claydon
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On Wednesday morning Mike
ran me to Banbury station so I could catch a train to Birmingham airport; I was
off to Hamburg to visit Sophie who is living out there to finish her PhD. I’d forgotten it was a bank holiday weekend
coming up and, at first, couldn’t understand why there were so many youngsters
with camping gear waiting for the Reading train on the opposite platform. I then realised it was Reading festival
weekend and mused to myself (no pun intended even though Muse were
headlining) how young and clean they all
looked and how different they would look in a few days’ time.
Apart from being delayed
an hour it was an uneventful trip to Hamburg and, after dropping my bags at
Sophie’s apartment, we went off to the nachtmarkt for a drink or two.
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Beer and prosecco in the
night market
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We had a full day of
sightseeing on Thursday and Sophie thought it was funny that I found a lock
within 15 minutes of walking around.
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Three sets of traffic
lights for one lock – seems a bit overcomplicated
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At least a narrowboat
would fit in here
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I knew Hamburg was one of
the largest and busiest ports in Europe (the third after Rotterdam and Antwerp)
but not that it was the second largest city in Germany. It’s amazing that it’s such a large container
port considering it is nearly 70 miles from the sea.
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Tourists looking at some
container cranes
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I also hadn’t realised how
many man made waterways there were in Hamburg – mainly built in the 17th
century
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Many of the old waterside
buildings made us feel like we were in Holland
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Sophie explained about ‘stolperstein’.
Artist Gunter Demnig has been
commemorating the victims of the German Nazi regime through his project
"Stolpersteine” – Stumbling Stones. All over Germany and many other mainland
European countries, he has been laying small memorial stones in pavements
outside the houses where the people, who were persecuted and
murdered by the Nazi regime, lived or worked . Set into
each stone is a brass plaque engraved with the person's name and dates of
birth, deportation and death, if known.
If you get the time I think it’s well worth reading about these and the background
to them on the web.
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A stolperstein
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We spent a lot of time on
ferries seeing the city from the River Elbe and spent the afternoon wandering
around the town watching the tourists. I
had completely forgotten my geography and that the River Elbe starts in the
mountains between Poland and the Czech Republic. When we used to visit Matthew when he lived
in the Czech Republic we often saw the River Labe but I never clicked that it
was the River Elbe.
Russian submarine built in
1976 for the cold war and is now open to the public - I wonder how many people initially think this is a german U boat because of the registration.
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One of the ferry stops
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The new opera building
reminded me of the ones we visited in Oslo and San Sebastian this year –
completely out of place with the rest of the architecture and stuck in a
prominent position in the harbour.
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The new opera house
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There are two long,
unusual, escalators in the opera house.
They are unusual as they are arced rather than straight so you cannot
see the top until you are nearly there.
Quite a strange sensation.
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Part of the Berlin wall
displayed outside the opera house
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View downriver from the
opera house
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More waterside wharves and warehouses…
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.. and more – these contain
the world’s largest model railway exhibition
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| Watching the nightly display of water and lights set to music in the botanical gardens - a popular place for local families to have a picnic on summer evenings |
We visited the town hall and I was fascinated to learn a lot about German politics from Sophe.
Sophie came back to the airport with me on Friday afternoon and kindly took my bag because of my back. She found that she could wear it ike a rucksack:
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| She didn't realise I put the handle up on the undergound making her look like a bumper car |
I got home on Friday evening
and Karen picked me up from Banbury station.
I sat next to a German girl, Isabella, on the plane and she was so
excited as it was her first trip to England and was staying with an old
boyfriend who now lives in Birmingham. Her
English was so good that we could have a good old chat and the two hours soon
passed.
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Isabella, the excited German
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Catherine, Karen’s eldest
daughter, came to stay with us for a couple days on Friday having now returned
from living in San Sebastian for the best part of this year.
On Saturday, it was
finally time to leave Cropredy and Mike and Lesley joined us for the three
miles and seven locks to Claydon where we will probably stay awhile. Just before we left, Gill came past on her yogurt
pot called ‘Yogurt’. She stopped off and
came in for a chat and a catch up – she is on her way back to Leamington so we
will have plenty of chances for a proper catch up over the next few months.
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Mike and Lesley giving a
welcome helping hand
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Karen getting on with the important
task of watering as soon as we moored up
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Our mooring above Claydon middle
lock
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After mooring up we all
went back to Cropredy for some drinks and a meal at the Red Lion. We’ve really enjoyed our stay in Cropredy and
look forward to our next trip there and seeing how Mike and Lesly’s house build
has progressed. By the same token it is
always good to move on as we make our slow journey to our next major
destination, Birmingham, by the middle of November.
