Sometimes the plans just don’t work out as you expected.

A bit of a quieter one today. I had a ticket from Sunday to do a city bus tour and planned this afternoon to visit the city observation tower.

The bus tour was a bit of a bust as I was sitting on the right side of the bus and most of the highlights were on the left. I’d probably say 80/20 left/right. So if you come to Hamburg (and I hope you do because Miniature Wonderland alone is reason enough to me) and do the Route C tour bus; sit on the left of the bus if you can.

I did hear some interesting things about the city though, so it wasn’t all a waste. The great fire of Hamburg caused extensive damage to much of the city. St Nicholas church was destroyed and the government actually blew up the Ralthaus (city hall) in an attempt to create a fire break.

That was not the end of the trauma for St Nicholas church, however. After the great fire the church was rebuilt in 1843 and stood in its new neo-gothic form until extensive bombing damaged and almost destroyed the entire church. It was never rebuilt and only refurbishment works to the spire occur today including the installation of a new observation tower and glass lift. A new St Nicholas church was built in 1951 in a nearby suburb.

The tour continued with lots of things on the left, very little on the right. The two things that were on the right was the new harbour construction that was scheduled for completion in 2022 but got delayed during covid. As well as the museum boats, but they were behind a sea wall that was built after the great flood of 1962. There was a giant storm that was the remnants of a tropical cyclone that hit the United Kingdom and caused massive flooding in north-west Germany. 60,000 people were displaced and they built the sea wall to protect the city from another flooding event.

We drove past the heritage listed warehouse district that includes Miniature Wonderland and the Maritimes Museum and then returned to the starting point at the Main Station. So the two main things I really got to see was a construction site and the building I’d already looked at and been inside.

So that was a bit of a bust and no real photos came out of it. A quick bite to eat for lunch and then it was off to the Maritimes Museum.

There were nine floors in the building, eight of them were of maritime history. From the early years of sailors and captains discovering the globe, to the modern maritime power of mega containerships and warships. The seventh floor was full of maritime artworks from across the globe, the eighth floor was dedicated almost entirely to the world of maritime models. The ninth floor was an events floor so was closed for the general public.

Some photos below, but that was basically it for the day as I was there for most of the afternoon.