Jeff: Hamburg and the rest of Germany

The next morning we were up early but we didn’t have a run planned as the aim was to drive into Hamburg and cycle around to see some sites. We have done sop much driving that it was nice to have a day exploring and relaxing. We got to the a stop where we planned to leave Jeff all day and headed of into the city on the bikes. We cycled through the centre to a little vegan café for some breakfast and a tea/coffee before we went sight seeing. First we went to Elbphilharmonie which is a concert hall and was the tallest building in Hamburg in 2017 and has a great viewing platform you can walk around on level 6 and look out over some of Hamburg and the river Elbe. While on the platform looking at the lovely views Rich also spotted a beluga plane which he did get very excited about, having never seen one flying before and it being so close.

After that excitement we headed off to the next place which was the river Elbe tunnel which is 24 meters under the river and you can cycle through it. We made a little mistake in our navigation and ended up at the boat crossing (which was about 10 mins further away so after cycling back those 10 minutes we queued up for the elevators and descended to the tunnel. It was lovely and cool underground and we quickly (too quickly) cycled the 425 meters across the tunnel and got into the elevator the other side. After admiring the views from this side of the river we again went into the tunnel and crossed over to continue our tour of Hamburg.

Next we headed to Speicherstadt which is an area of warehouses but it is slowly being transformed into an up and coming area of apartments and attractions. We managed to find a little ice cream shop with some vegan options while we were walking around so we stopped and admired the views with some ice cream before continuing to walk around the area.

Once we had finished here we decided to head to a vegan hamburger joint, as when in Hamburg you have to eat a hamburger! So we went and ordered some huge hamburgers for dinner before taking a slow cycle back to Jeff and driving north to a camper stop for the evening.

The camper stop we chose was near some football fields and was quite the hive of activity until fairly late, this could partially be due to a small fire which occurred in the woods behind the football fields (something we only figured out the next day on our run) and there were lots of sirens coming and going until the late hours.

The next morning we went for a run around the lake and managed to not get lost and then we need to head to the supermarket to get any last minute things before heading north to Denmark. The crossing to Denmark was easy, as most of the European boarders are, and we managed to find a free service point in order to service Jeff before heading into some woods near Kolding for the afternoon/evening. Once we set the van up we went for a short walk in the forest and found a lovely looking lake which you may or may not be allowed to swim in, we just aren’t sure, before returning to Jeff to do some admin and have dinner.