April 25, 2022
Day 13: Hamburg to Wolfsbruch
It took the cold light of day for the Grampies to locate the Hamburg nightlife. Interestingly the most risque signage, anyway, was integrated with McDonald's. (Warning, the next few pics are definitely R rated )
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The discovery of these businesses represents an advance for us. In Amsterdam I seem to recall that we pretty much failed to locate the red light district at all!
The official Elbe Radweg track called for us to go to the harbour and to find a ferry that would travel quite a ways downriver before depositing us on the opposite shore. But Dodie figured we could ride on the near shore until we would draw abreast of a convenient spot, and then jump across by a short ferry ride.
We set off, and joined a healthy stream of cyclists, presumably commuters, movng along the cycle paths followng the shore.
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Although we had not backtracked to the "Harbour City", we still got to see a number of Hamburg sights as we headed out of town. Very notable was all the harbour infrastructure on the far shore, plus the giant Airbus plant over there. It's the largest Airbus facility outside of Toulouse.
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Hamburg is naturlly very big on fish, and we passed a large fish market hall that has been there for well over a hundred years. Today it was completely empty. Just down the road, though, was an even bigger fish wholesale facility. I went inside and found lots of coolers and freezers and boxes of fish, but no artistic displays, such as would be set up for retail buyers. However one group of fish did consent to a photo, and they looked like this:
The idea that we could get a ferry to the other side, well down river was based on maps we had with the customary dotted lines across the water. But as we got closer and closer to where we figured the ferry was, there was a lack of the customary road signs with symbols for ferries. We arrived in Blankenese, our target town, still with no indication that we would be going anywhere. The thought of cycling back 20 km was beginning to take root in my head, where it was not at all welcome!
The town itself, it must be said, was extremely picturesque, built on a hillside. We also approved of the many Ukrainian flags that were flying in many spots.
We went to the only spot that might be ferry dock, although it mainly looked like a waterside restaurant. Very soon, a ferry did appear, and then a whole gaggle of people seemed to creep out of the cracks to get on it. Everyone had to put on masks, since it was quite a crowd.
In this way we got a 5 km "sea cruise", which we paid with our card. The mobile card scanner spit out all sorts of receipt information. We looked at it later. We had paid three euros in total.
The other side of the river was a different land in significant ways. First off, it is completely stork free. In fact we have not seen a stork since before Hamburg. But the main thing was acres and acres of apple orchards. In each of these the trees had been pruned in an upright stance, each with a support pole. This is the same style we have seen along the Adige River in Tyrol. And just as there, the region is a major fruit producer, with lots of companies in evidence, and big trucks roaming around, with fruit related graphics on their sides.
Aside from the orchards, the area had the feel of vacation paradise, and in fact there were lots of signs for vacation rentals. Many of the houses were beautiful as well.
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Not all the houses were traditional, or with thatched roofs. Most had the highly durable looking tile roofs. Among these were the ones with the shiny tiles, which to us are the most super looking roofs there can be. Dreaming about getting such a roof on our house, we debated if we would go for the blue, or choose something more demure.
In order to reach the decent hotel we had spotted a fair distance down river, Dodie plotted a certain number of shortcuts, using the main roads vs the designated radweg. This does not actually mean riding "on road" since in Germany if its a road (other than an autobahn) it probably has a bike way beside it. This was the case for us, but one effect was that we cycled through one quite dull small town after another. We did notice in these towns, though, that unlike similar ones upriver and in the East, there were plentiful bakeries and grocery stores, as well as other commerce.
Our target hotel, called Gasthaus Heiko Sieb, was located on the track, listing its location as the town of "Wischhafen". So the clever Dodie targeted our program of shortcuts to land us back at the track, at Wischhafen. When we got there, though, we found no hotel Sieb. It turned out the darn thing was 5 km back along the track, at Wolfsbruch.
When we finally got to the place, at Wolfsbruch, there was no apparent reception, just a key in a plastic sealer by the door. This rather hampered us, as there was no one to ask about where to put the bikes, about breakfast, about wifi, and even about where exactly in the building our room was. Fortunately a woman did eventually wander along. She came from a mysterious part of the hotel, leaving us confused about whether the place really had reception or not. The woman did come up with a key to the "bike garage" but she sent me wandering generally around the back of the building, where there were many doors and several other buildings, also with doors.
The key fit one door, and that let me into ... a rifle range?! People there directed me to some other door, which opened to an unused dining room or something. I stashed the bikes there. These people have more space than they know what to do with.
I decided to try bawling out the lady for the hotel being listed in the wrong town, but she took the position that the hotel was in the general vicinity of the other town (which is probably in its mailing address) and that is good enough. I tried to explain that for cyclists, +- 5 to 10 km is not good enough, but got nowhere.
Tomorrow we will reach the end of the Elbe, at Cuxhaven. How about that! We booked a place a little outside of town, and we have made darn sure we have it true location nailed down. We think.
Our thing that gives meaning to our lives today is oldest Montreal granddaughter Amelia, who is 11 years old today. Of course all the other assorted grandkids give us unending pride and joy also, but today is Amelia's special day so she gets the shout out by name.
Side note (written by Dodie) . Poor Steve had a hard time writing this blog entry. His tablet decided to die and he had to reconfigure all sorts of stuff to get workarounds on other devices. Maybe tomorrow he can explain what really happened, but for now he is sleeping, trying to recover from the trauma.
Today's ride: 66 km (41 miles)
Total: 632 km (392 miles)
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