Hanseatica

From Berlin we headed north to Hamburg and some of Germany's prettiest towns. 

We started with a visit to the castle of Schwerin. Here it is behind a camp of protesters campaigning against poor public funding of the arts.

By complete chance we managed to make it to Hamburg over the weekend celebrating the 823rd anniversary of the port opening. This may sound a bit arbitrary but it was a pretty big deal.

The Chilehaus

St. Nicholas' Church has been left in ruins to remember the 42,600 killed in 1943 during the Allied bombing of the city, code named Operation Gomorrah.

Within the church ruins is also a memorial to Jewish residents of Hamburg. 

The warehouses of the old port

Women aren't allowed to enter the street of Herbertstraße in the famous red-light district. Josh went in but unfortunately he dropped 200 euros and spent an hour trying to find it again.

The worlds biggest model railway with 890 trains, an airport and other cool stuff.

Of course, we couldn't visit Hamburg without going to the Beatles museum. (If you didn't know, they played over 100 shows in the city in the early 60's.)

Before leaving we went to Lüneburg with its wobbly walls

And Lübeck with its pleasant courtyards.

The Hospital of the Holy Spirit, built in 1260 and still in use as a retirement home.

Next we are heading further north to Scandinavia. By the way, we've added some new pages to our blog recently including pictures of our car and statistics about our trip. Just click the links in the menu on the right.