Miniature Wonderland

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Our Fred Olsen cruise ship Balmoral arrived in Hamburg on a very wet and windy day. We visited St Michael's church and the Rathaus.

Later we went to the amazing, incredible miniature wonderland. This is home to the largest model railway in the world. The exhibition covers around 1500m2 and there are more than 1000 trains. The displays feature Hamburg, Germany, Switzerland, USA, Scandinavia and Italy. The detail in the models is wonderful. one of many highlights is the working airport with planes taking off. from time to time the displays go dark as night time is simulated and there are thousands of lights in operation to create a real night scene. We spent around 2 hours at the exhibition. It is very busy with visitors but numbers are controlled This was the highlight of our visit to Hamburg.

The next day we walked in to Hamburg centre along the River Elbe. There was a lot of river traffic and we passed the Fish Market building and the German U boat museum. We continued to Hafen City where there were lots of old red brick buildings. These had been converted into shops, accommodation and museums from the old warehouse buildings. The whole area was a UNESCO world heritage site.

We admired the architecture of the Elbephilarmonie building and continued our walk to the Maritime Museum. This was excellent value at just 13 Euros.

On our walk back to The Balmoral we stopped to enjoy some tapas and German beer. Then it was time to say farewell to Hamburg as we set off down the River Elbe heading for the Kiel Canal.

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