glennaa11

Hamburg
Sofitel am Alter Wall
I booked my stay through the Hamburg city tourism office http://www.hamburg-travel.com/. They have lots of special offers. I got 3 nights for the price of two plus a room upgrade, breakfast and a 3 day Hamburg card which is good for 3 days of unlimited use of the public transport system and discounts at a variety of attractions. It ended up saving me several Euros but given how little I used the public transport it would not have made sense for to buy it outright. But since it was included in the package it was a nice perk. I ended up spending about US$145 per night since one night was free. I think that was a good bargain for the Sofitel which is a higher end place.
The folks at the tourism office told me to take the train to Jungfernsteig station which is one past the Hbf. If I had studied the map more closely I would have seen that the Stadtbruecke station is literally right around the corner from the Sofitel where I was staying. So instead of a two minutes walk I took the 10 minutes walk.

front of the Sofitel


The location is pretty unbeatable. The interesting sights of the old town are easy walking distance. If you need to ride the train the U3 is just around the corner at Roedingsmarkt station, and as I noted the S-bahn (S1,S2,S3) is also right nearby. The inner Alster lake is nearby so that is handy if you want to take a boat ride.

There was a giant Lions’ Club convention in town the weekend I was there so they were all over the place. They had tents set up along the edge of the lake selling food and some other stuff that was related to the Lions. And they had flags all over town welcoming them. I think the convention bureau is well financed.

The main reason for my time in Hamburg was to visit the Miniatur Wunderland. http://www.miniatur-wunderland.com/ It is the world’s largest model train display. They also have a model airport which is astounding and a section devoted to Scandinavia which has working boats. Everything is computer controlled. They also have moving road vehicles as well in some of the sections. I think those are the newer parts. The level of detail is really amazing. The trains are HO scale. The airport must be the equivalent. Seeing how they make the planes take off and land is quite ingenious. I spent 4 hours there. I went in the evening which I believe is less crowded. On Saturdays they are open until 23:00 in the summer. You can also pre-book a time slot via their website which I recommend. Even if there isn’t a line (like when I was there) it gets you a 10% discount. Photos barely do it justice. The videos are much better. You can find lots of them on YouTube. Their official videos are great because they mount the cameras on the trains. Just watch this video http://youtu.be/ACkmg3Y64_s