City of Hamburg, Germany

The next stop for our ship MSC Magnifica was Hamburg. This is a huge port city in northern Germany. Hamburg is located in the very place where the Elbe River flows into the North Sea.

We arrived at the port very early, it was only 7 am. We weren’t in a hurry. Exercise, jacuzzi, then a hearty breakfast, and around 9 o’clock we left the ship. The only time during the cruise when we didn’t know where exactly we were going, but more on that below. The weather was great. In general, we were lucky with good weather almost everywhere.

Sights of Hamburg

In one of the articles I recommend that readers book excursions around Europe in advance. I was also looking for interesting routes and places for our group. But alas.

I asked several fellow teammates, read a bunch of reviews and recommendations on the Internet, but everyone unanimously noted that there is nothing particularly interesting in Hamburg.

But shopping can be fun.

I, of course, understand that there are no comrades according to taste, but museums of contemporary art do not particularly inspire me or my comrades. There is practically no ancient architecture.

During World War II, in the summer of 1943, the US and British Air Forces very furiously bombed this industrial and port city. And as I understand it, most of it was rebuilt.

Okay, enough of the sad stuff, we had a great time in Hamburg anyway. Since in most European cities the port is located almost in the city center, we decided to get around everything on foot.

Even from the ship, our attention was drawn to the beautiful dome of the temple, and we headed to it first. There we met a woman, from whom we tried to find out where the large shopping centers were.

Apparently she lived in the GDR and remembered some Russian words from school. This made our communication easier. Showed the direction and name of the place where the shops are concentrated.

On the way we looked into the park and took a few pictures. By the way, there are a lot of parks in Hamburg. And suddenly they heard Russian speech; a woman was walking with her granddaughter. She walked us to the right street.

On the way, I told the story of my daughter’s migration. It turns out that the daughter works on a cruise ship for the German cruise company Aida. She began to climb the career ladder and needed to live in Germany. So the whole family moved for permanent residence from Ukraine to Hamburg.

Shopping in Hamburg

After the first shopping center, I got tired of this activity, and Gennady and I remained sitting in the nearest cafe. We took a bottle of German beer and just enjoyed life.

Having bought nothing, our girls joined us. We bought Krombacher beer in a nearby store; I once came across it in Samara, it was an expensive pleasure. And there a bottle of this wonderful drink cost less than 1 euro, 65 rubles in ours.

We walked a little more along the main street and decided to move towards the port. We found a cozy square, a bench next to the Bismarck monument and drank German beer in a wonderful atmosphere and mood.