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Hamburg Travel Blogs

Background: As Europe's largest economy and most populous nation, Germany remains a key member of the continent's economic, political, and defense organizations. European power struggles immersed Germany in two devastating World Wars in the first half of the 20th century and left the country occupied by the victorious Allied powers of the US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union in 1945. With the advent of the Cold War, two German states were formed in 1949: the western Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the eastern German Democratic Republic (GDR). The democratic FRG embedded itself in key Western economic and security organizations, the EC, which became the EU, and NATO, while the Communist GDR was on the front line of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. The decline of the USSR and the end of the Cold War allowed for German unification in 1990. Since then, Germany has expended considerable funds to bring Eastern productivity and wages up to Western standards. In January 1999, Germany and 10 other EU countries introduced a common European exchange currency, the euro.

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By vaagen
September 8th 2007

Autobahn

Europe » Germany » District of Hamburg » Hamburg

Me and Olivia just got a ride from Raststätte Stillhorn in Hamburg and now we're on the Autobahn going 160 km/h. It's friggin' crazy! Really feels like we're in some kind of race. Crazy fun. We were actually thinking about heading to Bremen and then onward but this guy stopping was going to Hannover so we might as well tag along. The weather is pretty gray, cloudy and rainy. :/ [View Full Entry]

By Axu
August 16th 2007

Hamburg & Lübeck

Europe » Germany » District of Hamburg » Hamburg

Holstentor

My last trip in Germany before heading back home to Finland. So this time I update my Travelblog right after the trip. Unusual, I know, but I bet a nice surprise too! The travels that I still haven't updated here will be written to Travelblog some time soon... Target: Hamburg & Lübeck in northern Germany! I travelled with my Erasmus friends Christina, Daniela and Francesco. Christina is an Erasmus student from Bordeaux but is a German. Daniela comes from Portugal and Francesco from Italy. I...well you know where I come from! This trip was a surprise trip. We "planned" [View Full Entry]

By Emufarm
August 14th 2007

Finding Hamburg

Europe » Germany » District of Hamburg » Hamburg

Turns out to be bloody hard. Its 97km by autobahn from bremen to Hamburg, 150km by the bike route, what they don't tell you is that half that route will be unsealed tracks between feilds as you are led between every small, identical town along the way... this can be a little frustrating, like when I had been biking for over an hour, covered 20km of some rough ground after leavinf Zeven, where I had stayed overnight, and came across an intersection between my route and another path to Zeven, distance 8km... but then, that might not have really been 8km... [View Full Entry]

By Alex McG
August 1st 2007

Hamburg 2

Europe » Germany » District of Hamburg » Hamburg

Hamburg from the Elbe
Looking down the Elbe to the port where all the big container ships go.

I took the train from Wedel to the centre of Hamburg with Elke and Kirsten to do some sightseeing. But firstly, the run down on Hamburg... or rather the “Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg” if you want the official title. Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany and is also it’s own state. Hamburg it seems to me as a city is very understated and as a result it constantly surprises you. The character of the place is a bit like the billionaire who still shines his own shoes; out of the ordinary but still down to earth. The [View Full Entry]

By Alex McG
July 31st 2007

Wedel

Europe » Germany » District of Hamburg » Hamburg

A leafy Wedel path
Out walking with Tante Elke

In this post, I’ll be visiting the heritage from the German side of my family. I was born in South Africa to a German mother and an Australian father. Living in Australia makes my Australian heritage easy to see, and with visit, the German side of the story is filled in. I took the ferry across the river Elbe to Wedel and was greeted by Tante Elke who is effectively a grandmother to me. We made a brief visit to her house where I dropped off my things and we each enjoyed a glass of champagne while catching up on family [View Full Entry]

By Kerrie and Ross
July 30th 2007

Hamburg

Europe » Germany » District of Hamburg » Hamburg

Inside the Hauptbahnhof (main station)

The trip to Hamburg involved our first experience travelling on a high speed train. In this case we were travelling on a high speed ICE train. The person at Heidelberg station recommended we book a seat as it might be full. We did this and ended up with our own 6 seat compartment to ourselves as the train wasn't full at all. Kerrie liked this as it meant she could not only listen to the Ipod but sing to the music as well. (The experience was therefore not quite so good for Ross.) Hamburg had probably the most impressive railway station [View Full Entry]

By Alex McG
July 28th 2007

Going to church in Hamburg

Europe » Germany » District of Hamburg » Hamburg

The Hamburg Skyline
Taken from a tour bus, this shows how the main churches dominate the skyline of Hamburg

Hi again, firstly apologies for taking so long to put these up, I sailed from Hamburg to Copenhagen and back and didn't have access to the net long enough to get these posts done (I only had access once with only enough time to reply to all my email). This and the site crash before I left put me out of reach of the blogsphere but I'm back and the posts should flow more regularly. Now... back to business. For my first trip into Hamburg proper was by sea (well by river actually but by sea sounds a lot better). On [View Full Entry]

By Alex McG
July 25th 2007

Arriving

Europe » Germany » District of Hamburg » Hamburg

My Plane
The MD-11 I was on from Hong Kong to Helsinki. Not the best of planes.

Getting here So, to start my sojourn into the European landscape I had to sit on some planes for a while... In the name of getting cheap tickets, frequent flyer miles and a flexible return date my flights involved more stops than I would have liked but in the end it all proved to be an interesting experience. The first flight was from Sydney to Hong Kong with Cathay Pacific. It was an overnight flight departing Syd at 10pm and only about one third full. This was great for me since I scored some excellent seating with four seats in a [View Full Entry]

By Dancing Nomad
July 16th 2007

PARTY - 5th Hamburg Salsa Congress 2007

Europe » Germany » District of Hamburg » Hamburg

RECOVERED

Hello, finally the weather in Germany has turned around and instead of clammy and cold it was suddenly hot and humid. Just in time for the 5th Hamburg Salsa Congress, yeahaaahhh! For the trip from Berlin to Hamburg I got a ride with one of my Berlin salsa friends (Javier). We were 4 salsero/as from Berlin and on our way to the congress we discussed the pro & con of people taping their own videos at congresses. You know the ones, who miss the workshops, shows and social dancing more or less because they keep starring onto the display of [View Full Entry]

By Susin
July 7th 2007

Oh mein Gott! Ich habe vergessen Deutch zu lernen!

Europe » Germany » District of Hamburg » Hamburg

Hamburg Port

Oh my god I forgot to learn German! I’ve become so accustomed to understanding at least some of what’s going on around me and being able to communicate my wants and needs in French that I totally forgot what it would feel like to all of a sudden be in a country that speaks a language of which I am completely unfamiliar. And even though I don’t speak a word of Dutch, travelling to Holland never posed that kind of problem to me because everyone there seems to speak English. Germany however, is a different story. After Janna came to visit [View Full Entry]

Travel Blog » Europe » Germany » District of Hamburg » Hamburg