Cologne, Belgium, and Luxembourg!

A Thursday evening impromptu decision led to a Friday afternoon train down through Germany and into Belgium. After finding a cheap return ticket from Brussels for Tuesday morning (so Mackenzie could make it back for her quiz), we scrapped our plans for a relaxed weekend exploring the smaller cities of Denmark in favor of a Belgian tour. Equipped only with a couple hastily-downloaded PDFs on Belgian attractions and some last-minute sleeping reservations, we disembarked from Copenhagen around 1:00 PM Friday for a 10-hour journey to Cologne, our German home for the night before the final four-hour train to Bruges in the morning.

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Cologne 

On the train down, during the period from Fredericia, Denmark to Hamburg, Germany, we were lucky enough to have some unexpected friends join us. We were sitting in two seats across from each other with a table in between and 6 vacant adjacent seats. At the Fredericia stop, on hopped three Danish middle-aged couples who sat right next to us, prepped and ready for an exciting 2-hours. With them they brought bottles of champagne, homemade crackers with prosciutto, Danish candies, and even plastic champagne flutes and a full coffee pot. Never have we seen more prepared train riders. Needless to say, the couples were ready for an exciting weekend getaway in Hamburg, and were generous enough to share some of the supplies and fun with us. It was a couple of the fastest hours we’ve had on the rails!

Despite only a few waking hours in Cologne, we still managed to make a mini-visit of it. Mackenzie settled in for bed upon arrival, as she wasn’t feeling well, but I decided to befriend some like-aged guys in the hostel’s social room from Canada, the US, and Finland, and even ended up walking around the midnight streets of Cologne with them for a couple hours in search of something to do. We ended up finding nothing, but it was still a fun little adventure with some new friends.

Dense wall of love locks in Cologne; this stretched for 

the entire half-kilometer length of the bridge

Our train left around 9:30 the next morning, giving Mackenzie and I time to check out Cologne’s greatest attraction before heading out: the monumental Cologne Cathedral, usually just referred to as the “Dom”. Located right next to Central Station, the Dom was 515 feet tall (and was even the tallest building in the world for a four-year stint at the end of the 19^th century!) and took 632 years to complete. It was a masterpiece of classic Gothic architecture, with a vast and opulent inside.

Massive Cologne Cathedral; standing inside

felt like being in an airplane hangar.

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Bruges

After a quick tour, we hopped on our train to Bruges, the “Venice of the North”, an old port city that, despite now being a popular tourist destination, has the ability to transport you back into olden times. It’s crisscrossing streets are clad with cobblestones and lined with medieval churches, chocolatiers, and waffle-makers. After arriving at 2 PM, we casually walked across town to our hostel, taking our time and strolling into churches along the way. The most notable was the Basilica of the Holy Blood, a 12^th century church famous for purportedly housing some of Christ’s literal blood in a vial at its front. We toured the church and stood in line briefly to view the vial, which did indeed contain some cloth with dried blood in it. Legend has it that Thierry of Alsace brought it from Jerusalem from a store of Jesus’ blood kept by Joseph of Arimathea, the man responsible for cleaning Christ’s body after the crucifixion. We continued onwards, passing through the Main Square, a secondary square, and countless canals (which used to be moats before being converted to the more aesthetic and tourist-friendly canals!) before arriving at our hostel.

Equipped with all our gear on our walk across town to our hostel, 

we stopped to take a quick photo at a canal crossing

Once at the hostel, we took our time to relax after the full day of travel, ate some dinner, and settled in before our 8 PM “Bruges by Night” tour of the city. Possibly my favorite free tour we’ve gone on (out of the four that we have now done), the tour was packed with fun anecdotes and interesting trivia about the city’s history, from ghost stories about murderous monks, to the origins of the term “hungover”, to a still-operating British pub originally founded in 1515. The tour conveniently ended right at our hostel, where we stayed for the remainder of the nights and were able to sample a couple of Belgium’s finest beers (Delirium Tremens was my personal favorite, and Mack loved the Hoegaarden). We’ve now visited Europe’s three greatest brewers – Germany, Czech Republic, and Belgium – so if the last couple posts have seemed a little beer-heavy, rest assured that beer-land is now behind us, and (to Mackenzie’s delight and my despair), the wine country of Mediterranean Europe is next to be explored.

Walking along the dimly lit canals during our 

"Bruges by Night" tour

Following a poor sleep in a noisy hostel, Mackenzie and I groggily awoke on Sunday, had some breakfast, and set out again to continue exploring the city. Unlike many of the larger cities we’ve visited, Bruges is not dense with attractions, and is better enjoyed by relaxing in one of the main squares or side streets and taking in the quiet charm of the village atmosphere. We did just that, and spent much of our morning on the main square. I grabbed a classic Belgian waffle from a street vendor (who we were told made the best waffles in Bruges), and we settled down in the square to listen to the professional playing of the carillon, a medieval instrument that somewhat resembles a piano, but instead of lightly tapping on the keys with your fingers to produce sound, you bang on large rods with your fists. It’s as fascinating as it sounds. The carillon is played from the top of Belfort, Bruges’ clock tower, and can be heard across the town.

Bruges Main Square

We ended our time in Bruges with another leisurely walk towards its most famous church: the Church of our Lady, known for housing the only Michelangelo sculpture outside of Italy. Unfortunately though, we didn’t think our timing through and arrived during Sunday mass, so were not able to enter, but the church was still beautiful from the outside and we enjoyed the walk there. We left Bruges around 1:00 and headed towards Belgium’s capital city, arriving a couple hours later.

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Brussels

Brussels was everything that Bruges was not, and in the best way possible. The cities are incredibly different, with Bruges being the northern, Flemish-speaking quaint town, while Brussels was the central, French-speaking multicultural EU epicenter. From the train station, we had a long 30-minute walk across town to our Airbnb, but we made quick work of it, only stopping along the way to check out a church, an architecturally beautiful shopping center, and to get some classic Belgian frites. We arrived at our Airbnb exhausted and took a nap before heading back into the city for the evening.

We ate at a popular fish and chips restaurants for dinner and then checked out the Grand Place, Brussels’ shockingly beautiful main square. Framed on one side by the massive Brussels Court House, a second side by the City Museum, and the remaining two sides by a variety of smaller buildings, the square lived up to its status as Europe’s most beautiful. Words cannot describe the breathtaking classical architecture and gold-trimmed buildings. After the square, we headed back to the Airbnb for a much-needed full night of rest.

Grand Place by night. Here it is the next day! 

Notice the blue skies -- the first we've seen in over a month!

We awoke revitalized Monday morning with two main areas to visit: the remainder of the downtown that we did not see the night before, and the EU district. We began the day by making the hike back into downtown, catching a church and back-alley along the way, and ending up back in the center of the Grand Place, experiencing it like new in the daylight. We strolled through the streets of downtown some more and took the time to stop at a popular café and relax as we made our way to the subway to take towards Schuman, the station directly under the European Parliament.

Stepping out of Schuman Station was like travelling forwards in time. Unlike the atmosphere of the downtown district from which we had come, with its old houses, classical architecture, and stunning cathedrals, we were now surrounded by tall glass skyscrapers and men and women in suits.  After a quick look at the European Parliament building, we took a walk in the adjacent Parc du Cinquantenaire, which took us to a huge gate similar to the Brandenburg Gate from Berlin. Because we had done so little research due to the short notice of the trip, appearances like this gate came as a total surprise to us, and made the trip more fun and exciting.

In front of the "triumphal arch", built in 1880 to celebrate

the 50th anniversary of Belgium's independence

From the park, we continued to walk around Schuman, and made sure to stop at the famous Maison Antoine, a humble kiosk known for frying up some of Belgium’s best pommes frites (they definitely lived up to the reputation!). We finished our time in Schuman by visiting a couple more parks (Brussels is Europe’s greenest capital), and took the metro back into the city center around 5:30 PM.

Average scene for one of many of Brussels' public parks

After some more strolling around, we ate dinner at a nice Irish pub, as we were both in need of some good ole’ burgers and, you guessed it, french fries (Mackenzie couldn’t get enough of the delicious Belgian specialty). I was also able to pick up some Belgian chocolates while we looked for dinner, polishing off the Belgian quadfecta of waffles, fries, beer, and chocolate! Following dinner, we headed back to the Airbnb to prepare for a very early morning wake-up.

We woke up at 3 AM on Tuesday morning and walked to the train station, arriving around 3:40, where a bus was waiting to take Mackenzie to Charleroi Airport. Knowing that Mackenzie had to be back in Copenhagen for an 11 AM quiz, we booked an early 6:50 AM flight with a budget airline, thinking that the airport would be close to the city. Unfortunately, this was a poor assumption, and the airport ended up being an hour away by bus! Additionally, while we both originally intended to head home together, only one ticket remained for the budget flight, Mackenzie took it, as I had no class Wednesday and was excited for the opportunity of an extra day of travel.

I dropped Mackenzie off, she made it to the airport plenty early, and was back in Copenhagen and ready for her quiz within a few hours. During this time, I walked back to the Airbnb, went back to sleep, and re-awoke at a normal hour to gather my things and head out. I found a set of trains that I could take overnight to get back to Copenhagen slightly after 2 PM on Wednesday, but the trains left me with a free day to do whatever I wanted, so I decided to do a quick solo day trip to Luxembourg!

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Luxembourg

After arriving in Luxembourg, I had about 7 hours to fill before I had to be back to the station. With no research whatsoever, I spent my time wandering around, diving into random cafes to grab Wifi whenever possible, and keeping myself busy. Luxembourg City was fascinating. Like Brussels, there was a huge juxtaposition of the old and the new, but it was so much more evident in Luxembourg. Not only was there a huge contrast between the architecture, with modern glass buildings interspersed with centuries-old churches and merchant guilds, but even the residents were wildly different. The elderly locals wore fancy business suits and expensive brogue shoes, while the young were covered in Gucci and Yeezy. Not only this, but the locals spoke either German or French, and it seemed to be evenly split down the middle. Every sign in the city had to be written in both languages, and whenever I spoke to someone, whether it be on the train or in a store, if they noticed I was having trouble understanding them, they immediately switched to the opposite language, before I informed them that I actually only spoke English. Every element of the city had an equally prevalent counter element.

View from Luxembourg's medieval city walls over the Old Town; 

the city was originally constructed atop of plateau, and expanded from there

Beyond the intrigue of the dual culture, Luxembourg has a lot of similar aspects to the other European cities that I have visited (other than the fact that it was completely devoid of tourists). I spent the day walking through the city and beyond, spending lots of time both on the designer-brand covered main streets and the quiet back alleyways. I visited the city’s main Notre Dame Cathedral, took a short hike to the remains of the ancient city walls to overlook the old town, saw a beautiful sunset, and even took some time to relax in a cozy café. At the end of the day, with nothing else to do and the cold of darkness setting in, I spent the last hour reading and relaxing in a fast food joint by the train station. While there wasn’t too much to do in Luxembourg, it was the perfect way to spend an unexpected extra day.

The entrance to the beautiful Notre Dame Cathedral.

 It had an unexpected quirk that wowed me!

And now I have arrived at the present! I am in the home stretch of my 16-hour train journey home. While it may sound awful, I love the time to catch up on my to-do list, read, walk around the train, and type this up. With no Wifi on these trips, I have to plenty of time to “disconnect” myself and not worry about social media, politics, or anything else that could cloud up my head. I’ve grown to not only appreciate but look forward to the solitude and time to recharge.

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Mackenzie and I intend to take next weekend off to catch up on our school work and sleep before a very long trip down to the Balkans to explore an area of the world that I’ve always wanted to. Lots of research to do over the next couple weeks in preparation for this adventure! 

Berlin, Prague, and Hamburg!

For our first real journey since arriving in Europe we decided to jump right in and take a 5-day adventure through Germany and down into the Czech Republic, spending two days in both Berlin and Prague, and one day in Hamburg. Additionally, much of the trip – about 22 hours in all – was spent on the trains taking us from city to city.

While all of the cities we visited were very different, the overall trip was characterized by beautiful architecture, a rich history, and great beer!

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Berlin

After arriving in Copenhagen, the trip started with a 7-hour train to Berlin, where we arrived at 9:00pm. Our hostel was right next to the station, so it was just a short walk with our luggage before we settled down into our room for the night, but not before taking a pit-stop at the hostel bar to try our first truly German beers – Mackenzie and I both got Franziskaner, a wheat beer, and loved it.

Saturday was our full day of Berlin travel, and we stuck to the historic Mitte district. We woke early and began with a short walk to the Reichstag, Germany’s Parliament building. The building was massive, and most uniquely characterized by the large glass dome on its roof. Tourists and locals alike can even take a tour to the top of the roof to gaze down on the desks of Parliament members directly below. With a history of corrupt German leadership, the German people have taken a hard stance against any future corruption by increasing government transparency, and the literal glass Parliament roof has become a symbol of this transparency.

Reichstag Parliament Building as the sun rises

From the Reichstag, it was a short walk to the Brandenburg Gate, a beautiful set of five arches in the middle of Mitte. Historically, all the German leaders would march their armies through the gate following their war victories. From Napoleon to Hitler, countless generals have led their armies through this popular gate.  

Brandenburg Gate

We continued past the Brandenburg Gate to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a brutally named Holocaust memorial that included an adjoining underground museum. The memorial was a large square block in the middle of Berlin filled only with rows of rectangular stone columns of differing heights; it was meant to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with reality. We grabbed some quick breakfast before descending into the museum. Filled with informational signs that painstakingly described the atrocities of the Holocaust, as well as letters and other belongings of Holocaust victims, most of whom didn’t survive the camps, the museum was both moving and educational.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

We walked on towards Potsdamer Platz, a newer part of Berlin filled with huge glass skyscrapers. In contrast to the modern buildings, however, were small sections of the Berlin Wall, still standing right in the middle of the plaza. Even where old parts of the wall didn’t stand, you could still see where the wall had once ran by a stone path in the ground – it was astounding to see how it ran so directly through the middle of the city, passing right through busy roads and huge buildings alike, all of which must have been constructed since its fall.

Tracks of where the Berlin Wall once stood, 

running through the middle of busy street

From Potsdamer Platz we walked towards Topography of Terror, another WWII memorial, this time dedicated to describing the Nazi leaders of the war. The location of the memorial was exactly where the Nazi headquarters once stood, and much of the old building’s foundation was still intact. It was both fascinating and a little scary to know that we were standing right where Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels and so many more Nazi leaders had once theorized and put into action their plans. We spent a long time here, once again reading through tons of WWII history and viewing memorabilia from the age.

From the Topography of Terror we walked to Checkpoint Charlie, a slightly underwhelming site in the middle of Berlin which used to serve as the US entry point from West Germany to East Germany during the Cold War. It was now just a small building in the middle of the street, occupied by a couple German men masquerading as American soldiers for photos and abounding beggars and other tourist traps.

After Checkpoint Charlie, we grabbed a quick lunch (I had currywurst – a German classic -- it was okay), and headed to Gerdarmenmarkt, one of my favorite spots in Berlin. It was a beautiful square framed by two churches and a concert hall. We were able to walk to the top of one of the church towers, which provided both a great view over all of Berlin and a really amazing set of bells, which we were able to hear ring, as we were lucky enough to get to the top of the tower just a few minutes before the hour.

Gerdarmenmarkt; buildings are French Cathedral, 

Berlin Concert House, and German Cathedral

We finished the day of exploration with a very long and cold walk back to our hostel, where we took a quick break before jumping on the nearby S-Bahn (metro) and heading towards Kreuzberg, the hipster part of town. On the short walk to dinner, we were able to pass by the East Side Gallery, a long remaining portion of the wall, which graffiti artists have taken over and beautified since its fall. We chose to have dinner at a Berlin legend: Burgermeister. The tiny restaurant was originally converted from a public bathroom, and lies in the median between two streets and directly under the S-Bahn (so it gets a little shaky in there whenever a train goes overtop). While the burger and fries were good and the man who took our order was friendly (something that we came to not expect in Berlin), the novelty of the restaurant was really what earned it its status. It was a fun, cheap, and tasty dinner for the two of us. After some debate on what bar to go to (as there wasn’t the variety of choices we expected), we settled for a Mexican place called Que Pasa. In fact, the only reason why we chose Que Pasa was because they advertised “4€ Cocktails”, but after sitting down and ordering we looked out the window to the restaurant across the street to see a makeshift “3.90€ Cocktails” sign – oops! We ordered some chips and salsa to get Mack her fix, grabbed a couple crappy cocktails, and called it a night.

Segment of East Side Gallery

Day 2 in Berlin was much shorter, as we had a 1:00 train to catch to Prague, so we filled it by going to Museum Island, an island near Mitte filled with five different museums, all with a slightly different taste to them. The first museum that we visited was the Neues Museum, which focused on ancient history, especially Egyptian. The most popular exhibit is the 3300-year-old bust of Nefertiti, an Egyptian Queen, which has been preserved in near-perfect condition. While the Nefertiti bust was incredible, both Mackenzie and I agreed that the most interesting things in the museum were the old Christian texts. The museum housed the first few pages of Isaiah, many of Peter’s psalms, and a short excerpt from Exodus. While we’ve been familiar with the texts all our lives (and certainly couldn’t read the ancient ones in front of us), it was still really shocking to see the original versions. We stayed at Neues for a while, so only had time for a quick run-through at our next museum. We chose to check out the Alte Nationalgalerie, a beautiful Roman-style building filled with European paintings from the 1800’s. The paintings were beautiful, but neither Mackenzie nor I are too fascinated by paintings, so we only stayed a short bit before taking the S-Bahn back to our hostel and grabbing our things.

Our posted train time was 1:04, so when we were walking up to the platform at 1:01 (after taking our time in the station and grabbing some lunch), we saw the train already waiting and sauntered on. Therefore, when the train doors closed literally seconds after we got on, we were amazed at how close we were to missing it. This was a fortunate lesson-learned that the trains leave the station at the posted times, not arrive!

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Prague

Not only were we fortunate enough to get on the train to Prague, but we were also introduced to the luxury of compartment rooms! Mackenzie and I were able to snag a 6-person compartment on the entire 5-hour direct train to Prague, which made the already-scenic trip through the Alps surrounding the Czech Republic even more comfortable.

We arrived in Prague at 5:30, took a short walk to our cute hostel, and then headed to our reserved dinner at Lokal, a popular restaurant near the middle of the Old Town known for serving up some of the best traditional Czech food and drink in Prague. I got the svíčková, Czech’s most popular dish (similar to a beef stew), and Mack got some Czech chicken and potatoes. The favorite part (or at least the part with the greatest novelty) was the beer: Pilsner Urquell. Not only was this the original pilsner (originally brewed in Pilsen, Czech Republic), but Lokal is one of the few places in the world where you can get the beer directly out of the tank where it was brewed, as opposed to just out of a keg. This resulted in a super good and supremely fresh pilsner. To note the affordability of Prague, a .5L beer cost about $1! A fun experience!

From dinner, we headed a short distance to the Old Town Square, where we met up with our group for the famous Prague Pub Crawl. Despite being a Sunday night in January, there were still about 15 of us determined souls willing to brave the cold to get some exposure to the fun bar scene of Prague. For the next few hours, we jumped from pub to pub, seeing the variety of nightlife that Prague has to offer and meeting some new friends along the way. Everyone on the tour was young, and we ended up befriending some like-minded individuals from Brazil, Israel, India, Switzerland, and Ireland! It was a fun way to start off the trip, and by talking to the guide and the other crawlers who had already been in Prague for a couple days, we were able to get some valuable insight into the must-sees of the city.

360° view of Prague's Old Town Square

Our full day in Prague was packed-full of walking from site to site. Unlike Berlin, however, there wasn’t a street in Prague that wasn’t incredibly scenic in its own right, regardless of any lack of tourist destinations. Every street in the expansive downtown district was defined by beautiful architecture, pastel buildings, and cobblestone roads. We started the day by walking from our hostel 20 minutes to the Old Town Square, the center of Prague. There, we met up with Zach, an American who originally came to Europe with the intention to backpack for a couple months, only to end up staying in Prague for years. Along with a few other small groups, we followed and listened to Zach for the next 3 hours as we walked through the Old Town district, Wenceslas Square, the Jewish Quarter, and up to the shore of the Vltava River. The tour was fantastic and dense with history and fun facts that we never would have known – from the epic Jan Žižka who led the Hussites to an undefeated record in battles while completely blind to the fact that Mick Jagger himself completely financed the lights that now illuminate Prague Castle at night. The tour was definitely worth the price of a tip and we will look to do more in future cities!

Famous Astrological Clock in the Old Town Square

From the tour, we headed to our guide’s suggestion of Krčma, another traditional Czech restaurant which boasted one of the coolest interiors I’ve ever seen. I got goulash, the second most popular Czech dish, and felt that I had succeeded in exploring Czech cuisine. After lunch, we walked to Charles Bridge, where construction had started in the 14^th century, and climbed to the top of one of the towers at the end of the bridge, which afforded us a beautiful view over the top of the city. We finished the day by walking to Lennon Wall, a John Lennon-inspired wall covered in motivational graffiti. A street performer played classic Beatles songs in front of the wall, which created a really neat atmosphere for reading the uplifting graffiti. We stayed here for a while to take in the ambiance.

John Lennon Wall with some fitting entertainment!

Finally, we finished the night with a departure from Czech cuisine and a walk back into familiar territory: some pasta at a yummy Italian place near Old Town Center which had some delicious bread and olive oil (we all know that’s all Mackenzie needs to love an Italian restaurant)!

An early night allowed us to start the day strong on Tuesday, and we headed out across town via the metro to visit Prague Castle, the largest and one of the oldest castle complexes in Europe. It had snowed a lot overnight, which created a still beautiful but very different feel for the city. From the metro was a short walk to the top of the hill for the castle, during which we wound up having to talk a Prague cop down from a nearly $100 ticket to a measly $4. I was left with about 20 cents after paying the fine with the change I had in my pocket (we were ATM-bound), and I have a feeling the cop wasn’t going to accept card. Always pay attention to street signs! Woops!

Snowy view over Prague from atop Castle hill

With construction starting in the 9^th century, the Prague Castle complex was filled with beautiful churches, towers, alleys, and other historic sites. We picked up some all-access tickets at the gate, and first visited the stunning St. Vitus Cathedral. Definitely the most breath-taking of all the churches we visited over the trip, St. Vitus Cathedral was filled not only with incredible paintings, life-like statues, and stained glass windows, but it also served as the burial site for some of Prague’s most influential figures, including Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV and Prague’s Patron Saint Wenceslas.

View of the colossal St. Vitus Cathedral

After St. Vitus, we went into the Old Royal Palace, a beautiful palace dating back to Charles IV filled with grandiose dining halls and ornate furniture. Our favorite part of the palace was that we were able to see the exact window were the Second Defenestration of Prague happened, when three men were tossed from a window, beginning the 30 Years War. From there, we viewed a less-than-amazing Basilica of St. George and a couple small museums about the history of the castle.

Lastly was the Golden Lane, a tiny cobblestone street on the outskirts of the complex adorned with shoebox-sized houses, where the castle attendants used to live when the castle was still occupied. The upstairs of the houses had been converted into a gallery of Czech medieval armor from the various wars, and the bottoms had turned into replicas of what the houses may have looked like during the Middle Ages. Surprisingly, despite some of the houses never getting running water, the Golden Lane was continuously occupied until the 1950’s, and Franz Kafka actually lived and wrote in one of the tiny houses during much of his life!

Franz Kafka's tiny house on the Golden Lane

After the castle, it was time to head back to the train station to say goodbye to Prague, and we managed to pick up a couple small paintings along the way to remember the trip.

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Hamburg

From Prague we took a 7-hour long direct train to Hamburg. Thankfully, we were able to jump on the train right as it arrived at the station and strategically found another compartment that we could use. This made the trip so much better, as it was easy (for Mackenzie) to nap, watch movies, and sprawl out in the compartment without affecting anyone else. The seven hours back through the snow-covered foothills of the Alps went by smoothly.

Video showing the ride from Berlin to Prague; we followed
the same route back up to Hamburg

We arrived in Hamburg around 9:30, and walked the very short distance to our hostel, dropped off our stuff, and asked the hostel concierge for some directions to somewhere to grab a couple drinks. She suggested Sternschanze as the best spot for young people, so we headed out via metro and grabbed some beers in a couple cozy bars before heading back to the hostel for the night.

Our last day of travelling was a short one – only 6 hours! – and thankfully we spent it in Hamburg, as that’s about how long it takes to see most of the city. Despite being the second largest city in Germany, Hamburg isn’t nearly as dense with destinations as Berlin or Prague, so we found ourselves a little underwhelmed. Regardless, like the other cities, we spent the day walking from attraction to attraction, with an emphasis on the churches and government buildings.

View of Hamburg's sprawling harbor from

 the top of the  new Philharmonic

The most unique aspect of Hamburg was its status as the largest German port city. This resulted in a pretty harbor district, which was our first walking destination on Wednesday. We walked about 20 minutes from our hostel to the very new Hamburg Philharmonic, a modern building which allows free tickets to the top for a great view of the harbor and downtown in the distance. The harbor was huge and incredibly industrial, with tons of cranes and other large machines scattered throughout (think of Wilmington’s port times 100!). From the harbor we continued our march to St. Michael’s Church, Hamburg’s oldest and most beautiful church. Despite being a little desensitized to the beauty of churches after spending so much time in some of Europe’s best over the past few days, St. Michael’s still managed to impress, and had an especially ornate organ and fantastic stained-glass windows.

Grandiose organ from St. Michael's Cathedral

We next walked towards the center of downtown to visit Rathaus, Hamburg’s intricately designed government building with a beautiful water fountain in the middle. From there we visited two more beautiful churches, St. Paul and St. Jacobi, the second of which had an organist performing while we toured the church, making for a much more enjoyable experience. Lastly, we took a short detour to the incredibly lame Chile Haus, an “iconic impressionist brick building”, which we ended up staying at for about 30 seconds to make sure we weren’t missing anything.

Central fountain in Hamburg's Rauthus

And finally we headed back to the hostel, grabbed our things and some food from a nearby grocery store, and jumped onto our last set of trains back to Copenhagen! We weren’t lucky enough to get a train that had compartments, but we still managed to have an easy ride back, filled with Harry Potter, naps, and typing this up! We arrived in Copenhagen at 10:00.

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As I write this, I’m currently crossing the Ørestad Bridge on the final train from Copenhagen to Lund. The trip has been incredibly fun and fulfilling. To rank the cities, Prague takes a clear lead, while Berlin and Hamburg fall behind, with Berlin’s many tourist destinations edging it out over Hamburg. It will be difficult to beat Prague over the course of the semester!

For this upcoming weekend (which starts tomorrow!), the plan is likely to take it easy, with a day trip on Saturday to Stockholm. We both cannot wait to see what the city on islands has in store for us!