What, No Biking Today? Day 8 - June 15

Full group picture

Started the day with a quick breakfast at 8 am. How could you not have a good day when you see these happy eggs? We met with the tour guides at 9:20 for a walk down to the harbor for a boat tour of Hamburg from the Elbe River. Hamburg is a city of over 2 million and the harbor is a major facility. Over the years as the city has changed, so has the harbor. It has moved to accommodate container ships and also cruise boats.

One of the largest buildings on the waterfront is the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. It is a fairly new building and is one of the largest and acoustically most advanced concert halls in the world.

We passed some container ships that were unloading their cargo. The harbor also had some dinner/gambling boats as well. The Elbe River has many canals where boats are moored both temporarily and permanently. We cruised around the harbor for about an hour.

. After our boat ride, the group walked up to St. Michael's church. It is a very recognizable with its clock bell tower at 132 meters that can be seen from all over the city. It is also Hamburg's largest church. The church also houses 5 different church organs. At noon on this day, there was a free organ concert featuring Bach, Dupré, and Widor. It was about 30 minutes and I looked around to see most of the group sleeping.

After the concert, we took a group photo since four of the bikers and one tour leader would not be continuing on. Mark and I headed back to the hotel to have a quick snack and decide what to see in the afternoon. Over the course of the day, we had already walked a lot, but we decided to visit the harbor again.

We stopped at St. Nikolas' church which was built in the 14th century, but had been destroyed in the Great Fire of 1842, like St. Peter's church. It was destroyed again during WWII, but not rebuilt. The ruin is maintained as a monument against war. It looks like a church from the front, but as you enter into the courtyard, there are no real walls. Dinner was on our own and we decided to get seafood tapas. After 11 miles of walking, we decided to call it a day.

the many canals