Sept 20-23, 2009 – Harbour and Night of the Light festival, Hamburg, Germany

Our hosts in Hamburg were Wolfgang and Heinke Biedermann.  They made us feel incredibly welcome and opened their home to us. 

We walked up the illuminated steps on the building below, an architecture marvel that extended into the Elbe River and offered a great view of Hamburg’s port.

 

After taking us to dinner at a great Italian restaurant (a favourite of theirs), Wolfgang and Heinke took us on a walking tour of downtown Hamburg, including the Night of the Light, a celebration to open a new area of Hamburg that included some very exclusive apartments and retail locations built on the Elbe River and offering front-door marinas for those lucky enough to have a boat and the money to moor them there.

One of the acts in the Night of the Light was a team of fire spinners that was staged on a barge in one of the channels of this new Hamburg development. 

 

Another part of the Night of the Light was a replica of a hand-cranked merry-go-round that included a light display of its own that both Charlotte and Allister enjoyed.

Sept 20-23, 2009 – Hamburg, Germany

Hamburg has a huge number of canals.  On our walking tour with Wolfgang and Heinke we saw this one that also included a lock to let boat traffic move from one elevation to another.

 

We also found one of the most distinguished looking Burger Kings that we have ever seen.  This Burger King was also located near one of the best Lego stores (outside of LEGOLAND) that Allister had every seen.  He was powerless to resist the spell of Lego not available in Canada and wound up leaving a bunch of his paper route money in this store.

Charlotte, a Smart Car aficionado from way back, spotted this four door model (not yet available in Canada). 

Sept 20-23, 2009 – Sunday market in Hamburg, Germany

From Denmark we took the ferry to Germany and then on to the home of Heinke and Wolfgang Biedermann.  Heinke is Ute Michaelson’s sister and we had met her and her daughter Marie and son Daniel this summer when they accompanied Daniel to his home stay in Whistler.

Due to the rock slide on the road between Horseshoe Bay and Squamish, when Heinke arrived they could not go directly to Whistler so they stayed overnight at my Mom and Dad’s house and then we all visited Stanley Park the next day on their way to catch the boat Charles Grooms had organized to get Charlotte and Bev Grooms home from Squamish and Heinke, Marie, and Daniel, up to Sqamish (on the return trip).

Anyhow, with that as background, here are some of the sights we saw at the Hamburg market on Sunday morning. There was stall after stall of merchants selling everything from fruit to shirts, and leather goods.

I want you to bear in mind it is 7:30 am on a Sunday morning and this crowd is rocking — singing and dancing and drinking to the sounds of a rock ‘n roll band.  This bandstand was at one end of a long hall and there was another just like it at the other end so the music would never need to stop.

Charlotte about to enjoy a waffle.

This guy (apparently from the Netherlands) was selling boxes of plants right off the side of his truck.  And doing it with great gusto!  He’d fill a box and then auction it off to the highest bidder and every once in while he’d give away a box or a plant to a lucky shopper.

Another merchant was selling candy and chocolate.  His style was to fire the merchandise out into the crowd.  Those that caught the candy or chocolate would then file by a cashier on the right hand side of his truck and pay for their prize.

Hamburg, although its not located directly on an ocean or a sea (its on the Elbe which has access to the North Sea) is a major shipping point as the following picture of only a small part of the container handling facilities of its port shows.

 

Laura-Lyn with her Hamburg fruit basket – 6 Euros for a pile of fruit.  The prices drop as 11:00 am nears which is the end of the market.  Apparently a long time ago, the church made a deal with the merchants that the market could open on Sunday but had to close in time to let folks get to church.  Allister looks like he was still a little sleepy after an early start on Sunday morning.