The weather started cold and drizzly but we headed out to look at the landmarks of Hamburg some more.
Spire of St. James's, rebuilt post-war in a modern style.
The Rathaus in the rain.
When is my bus coming? This is how public transport should be.
Cranes on the top floor of warehouses along the old port docks.
Nikolaikirche is another church destroyed in the war and left as a memorial. It has an elevator to its tower viewing area and we went up.
On the viewing area are photos of the city from the same vantage point after the bombing, with info on the raids. In August 1943 the RAF carried out "Operation Gomorrah," bombing Hamburg's residential districts while the USAF bombed the shipyards and docks. About 35,000 people died; a million more lost their homes and belongings in the firestorm and fled the city. The view today, although misty, is happily one of a thriving city.
The Rathaus; beyond, the inner and outer lakes.
The port and dockyards.
Moving on, we went into St. Michael's, which has to be the most opulent Lutheran church ever.
Front and spire.
First view of inside; click through to appreciate. Wait, are those pretzels?
The pulpit. You gotta have self-confidence to speak from here.
The organ.
It was Ertedankfest—Thanksgiving!—and the place was decorated with offerings of bread.
Hence the pretzels hanging from the sconces.
We also went up in Michael's tower, but it didn't show us anything Nick's hadn't.
Then it was time to go back to the hotel and go out for socializing with (gulp!) real Germans! Peter and Ina Dries generously invited us to their home in a suburb of Hamburg.
Our link to Peter and Ina was rather slender: one of their sons is married to the daughter of Don Anderson, a friend from Stanford Basketball fandom. Well, another link: Peter is an ex-IBMer like us. But they took Don's word for it that we were presentable, and asked us over and treated us royally.
The Dries live in a suburb at the end of the S-21 line, and as we walked the half-kilometer to their house we commented on how much it felt like, for example, Atherton: quiet streets, large houses set back among mature trees. Although nominally retired, Peter has a busy life: he tutors high-school math students weekdays; he is studying Russian to add to his other languages; he helps a friend run an organic food store; and today, Sunday, was his day at the local Railway Museum. Until he came home we were entertained by Ina who, besides being a skilled dancer in several styles, is studying harp to go along with her guitar-playing. We were awed by the breadth of their skills and interests and determined that as soon as we got home, we must Buckle Down and Do Something.
Peter took us on a walk through the woodsy suburb of Aumühle. It's woodsy in part because it is in the Saxonwald, the hunting preserve of Saxony, given to old Otto Von Bismark, the guy who masterminded the creation of a unified Prussia, and then the German Empire. What was Otto's private railroad station is the next stop after Aumühle.
Then we had a great dinner and reminisced about the old days at IBM (Peter's first work was coding for an IBM 1130 to support the Volkswagen assembly lines), and came on home rather late, hence the delay in posting a blog entry.
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