Hamburg; Sunday, 22 September, 2019

I had intended on getting up earlier than I eventually did – but the bed turned out to be very comfortable and I ended up sleeping through my alarm, though thankfully I woke up with enough time to still grab breakfast.

I packed my stuff and checked out of the hotel and then walked over the canal into the warehouse district to have a wander along some of the canals and long rows of old warehouses. I ended up at the Miniature Wunderland exhibition. I’d visited this when I’d first come to Hamburg 12 years previously, but at that time it was a much smaller attraction, mostly focused on being a model railway with a couple of small models of other things – such as Hamburg airport. In the intervening decade the site has grown to now cover multiple floors of the warehouse building its in and expanded to cover lots more countries and lots more intricate moving displays. Unfortunately, on getting to the ticket office it turned out there was a 50-minute wait to get in – so instead I booked a ticket for later in the afternoon when it was due to be quieter.

With my ticket purchased for two hours in the future I instead headed back over the canal into the city and over to the Mahnmal St. Nikolai. This is the former St Nicholas church which was destroyed during the allied bombing raids of 1943. Again, this was a site that I’d visited back in 2007, but back then it was just the surviving tower of the church, which you could go up in a lift to a viewing platform at the base of the spire. The viewing platform is still there, and of course I headed up to take in the views over the city. However, since my last visit a new museum had been opened within the crypt of the former church which has been restored and houses an exhibition about the history of the church and the impact of the war on the city, as well as the story of the bombing that destroyed much of the city.

From the memorial and I headed over to the Rathausmarkt to grab some lunch before heading back towards Miniature Wunderland to have a look round that. I spent quite a lot of time in Miniature Wunderland – so long in fact that I suddenly realised I was at risk of missing the second canal cruise that I’d booked onto. Thankfully, as I was coming out of the museum there was a bus heading back over towards Jungfernstieg just pulling up at the stop so I was able to hop on that and head over to the landing stage to pick up my boat.

Despite it ending up being the same tour as the previous night it actually took a different route through the historic warehouses, so I was able to see much more of the area than I would normally have done. It also meant I was able to get several good photos from knowing where to look.

Originally I’d booked the tour as a bit of a risk as it only left me a little time to pick up my luggage and get over to the airport for my flight, but as the boat started to head back through the locks between the rivers Elbe and Alster my phone beeped with a text from easyJet to let me know that my homebound flight was going to be as heavily delayed as my outbound flight was.

Back at the landing stages I was able to make a more leisurely journey back to the hotel to collect my bags. Originally, I had planned to go the quickest route which would have been the U-Bahn a couple of stops to the Hauptbahnhof and then getting on one of the packed S-Bahns round to the airport.

However, with my flight now at least 80 minutes late I could get a seat on the U-Bahn from the hotel out to the edge of town and the penultimate stop on the S-Bahn to the airport so that, if the train was still packed, I’d only have to stand for a few minutes. This plan worked really well, using up a good 20 minutes more time than the direct route would have done and meaning I went the whole way with a seat.

At the airport I headed through security and down to the gate to grab a seat. Having made myself comfortable they then announced they were moving the gate. I decided not to bother moving until the plane actually arrived, which turned out to be the sensible idea as the moved the gate again about 45 minutes later.

We eventually boarded and pushed back nearly 80 minutes late, and then thanks to works on the runway at Gatwick lost yet more time so that by the time I finally landed and disembarked down the steps on a remote stand into the pouring rain, it was already gone midnight.