SUMMARY Another ginormous breakfast buffet which requires some hard choice! We load up the car for the last time and drive to Hamburg, the last German stop on our trip. We get into our suite at 12:00. Sweet! Drop our bags, crank down the AC and head off to the airport to get rid of the car. Therein lies another tale which I’m sure Scott will elaborate on. I’ll just say we saw a lot of ugly parts of Hamburg including the shipping port, rail yards and coal storage facility. Great tapas dinner at La Paz! - Karen
DETAIL We wake and note that having the A/C on, set to 10°C overnight, didn’t seem to have any effect. It’s still quite warm. :-( Well, we’re driving away today, to Hamburg, so whatevs.
Breakfast is another one of those German wonders. It’s included with our room, so we present ourselves and give our room number. They guide us to an open table, and for each of us they put down a cup, saucer, placemat and a wooden tray with silverware and napkin. Nice!
The food? Cereal, eggs, bacon, fruit, breads, cheeses, meats, etc, etc. There is a 12”x18” piece of honeycomb with a honey cutter/scooper. There’s a dispenser just for the Nutella. There’s a 24” tall electric butter machine: put your plate underneath, press the button and a kinda perfect pat of butter is plunked down on to your plate. The coffee? It’s in a carafe at your table.
Where are the mechanics who should be keeping the rooms cold? They’re making sure the Nutella dispenser is properly adjusted!
Stuffed with breakfast we check out and get on the road. It’s under an hours drive to Hamburg. At our hotel we leave the car in the loading zone out front and drop off our luggage. The young lady behind the counter does say it’s too early to get into our room but we can certainly check in and leave our luggage. She takes our name and my passport and looks up our reservation. Ah, YOUR room, yes, well your type of room is already available. I say to my self: Stop that, what do you mean “our type of room”?? Who made these reservations!
The bellman wheels our two carryon bags up to the room for us. He opens the big heavy door behind which is, yes, a door. No hall noise in here! He shows us the rooms amenities. Here’s the minibar. It’s included. If you need more, let them know and they’ll refill it. [stop that!]
Back in the car I ask the GPS where the airport is. Two airports show up. The such-and-such airfield and the Hamburg so-and-so Airport. We’re sure it’s the latter one, so we ask for that and for a stop at a gas station just before the airport. It’s a 28 minute drive to the airport, with lots of twists and turns. Plus they’re doing roadwork so lanes are temporarily taken away and then given back. Hamburg is one of the biggest ports in (Germany? Europe?) and we see lots of semi trailer trucks and cranes and container ships. We even see the infamous Evergreen (the one that got stuck in the Suez Canal).
At the gas station I fill the car with diesel (which is good as it’s a diesel car). In the past we’ve screwed that up (OK I screwed that up) and the fix isn’t cheap.
I “talk” to the GPS again. Previously I just asked for the airport, now I specifically want the rental car return, and ideally for Alamo rent-a-car, please. No worries it just a short 30 minute drive from here - on the other side of Hamburg. Say what?? Hamburg has THREE airports and we’re at the wrong one? Crap.
Finally at the right airport we give the car back. We give the guy the key and he checks the gas level, looks for any damage and finally is satisfied. We hope he works for the rental company.
Tickets for the S-Bahn are bought and we hop on the U6 and later switch to the S3. The station where we get off is a literal stones throw from our hotel.
Feeling good about successfully getting to our final city, and returning the car in one piece, we plan a celebratory dinner at La Paz, a tapas restaurant here since 1983. Karen found it and it’s very well reviewed. To be sure we can get in she uses The Fork app and makes a reservation. We get an email back saying our reservation request has been accepted, yay!
It takes two metro lines to get here. We look at the funny names of the stops and listen to how the recorded voice says them. Sometimes we can figure out what they mean (like Königstraße - Kings Street, or Cristuskirche - Christ Church) and most other times it’s just gibberish. As long as we can match where we’re supposed to get off with what the station says we’re in good shape.
At the restaurant a nice lady greets us. We say we have a reservation. She can’t find it. No worries, they have tables and we get one. Delicious tapas and sangria and pink wine (and more pink wine). Eventually we go ‘home’ and relax some more. Tomorrow we give up our room and board a ship back to the USA. Europe, it’s been great, we’ll be back!
Photos
Waking up in Lübeck we peek outside. Yup, still pretty. And still blue sky and sunshine. We've gotten lucky with the weather, mostly.
Some crazy things at breakfast. This powered nutella dispenser oozes out exactly one shotglass full of cholatey, hazelnut gooey goodness.
More old school, are you? Here's a big slice of honeycomb. Any closer to the bees and you'll need an epinephrin pen.
But for height this bad boy has all the rest beat. Put your plate underneath, where the scarey blue light is shining, and hit the button and a perfect pat of butter plops onto (whatever's underneath it).
Having dropped the car we take our luggage and take the UBahn and the SBahn to our hotel. It's nice and quiet and a smooth ride.
At our hotel the walls are all curved. Hm. I'd ask for some of the money back from the construction company.
We open the door to our room and, poof!, there's another door. Like Russian dolls, we wonder how long this is going to go on.
Inside there's a kitchen complete with all pots, pans, utensils, plates, etc. etc. Just why?
Now this sweetheart never has to answer "why?" This is Pancho and he's 10. He and his two male humans were waiting with us in the same line at La Paz tapas bar for dinner.
Really good tapas. The motar and pestle is filled with DIY guacamole. Some mashing required. When ordering our server asked if we wanted "nachos" with that. FYI, in Hamburg, a nacho is a tortilla chip.
Full, happy, and headed back to the restaurant.
We noticed that if you're on the metro, and you're lying on the floor (and you have really good eyesight) you can tell where we're going. There's a complete system map on the ceiling. Wha?
[Gentle reader, please note that as I type this, in real time, we're boarding a cruiseship to take us back home to the USA. Internet connectivity is notoriously iffy on such vessles. As such, future blog entries may be delayed. Thanks in advance for your patience.]
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