ON TO THE LUBECK – HAMBURG AREA: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31

Today we say good bye to the family towns area, and head to the big city, Hamburg (sometimes called the Venice of Germany. To be more accurate, the area we are leaving is the family towns my great-grandparents were born and raised in, and from where they immigrated to America. However, I have Abraham family roots that extend back even to Hamburg and Bremen.

We’ll be driving in Germany fromHusum to Lubeck near the Baltic sea. We’ll make Lubeck our home base for four nights. From Lubeck we plan to train to and from Hamburg two of those days. The other day and one-half will be spent visiting sites in Lubeck’s historicAltstadt (Old Town).

Driving and has been somewhat more stressful than anticipated, as our Garmin navigator is not operating properly. We call him “Gator” at home. In Italy we named him “Gatorini”. Here in Germany he’s been renamed “Gatorhof”…and to be perfectly honest, a few other unmentionable names!

Gator has ALWAYS served us well in our previous European travels, but for some reason he has skimpy map detail here and the accuracy is not good. Also, he is not allowing us to search by address nor is he providing us information on food, gas and attraction locations. We subscribed to Garmin’s global map updates, but could not upload them here to our device. The reason? According to Garmin Tech support, our device has insufficient memory for the updates. So, why did they sell us a lifetime maps update!!

Fortunately, we bring roadmaps as a backup as well as printed Google Maps for locating our reserved accommodations.  Even when Gator has worked in the past, Jeannie always follows along with maps. Good thing, as she has really kept her map reading skills well honed. She is being so patient with my spurts of anxiety when we find ourselves making a wrong turn or having to stop to figure out where we REALLY are.

But we’re dealing with it. Jeannie keeps reminding me what good brain exercise it is trying to figure out our location or direction…and do our brains ever need exercise! We just have to roll with it…keep on laughing. It’s all part of the adventure.

Our hotel in Lubeck is very near the train station just outside Lubeck’sAltstadt (Old Town). We chose the location for ease of access to the train (for Hamburg visits) and because it was near the walls of the main gateway to Lubeck’sAltstadt.

ABRAHAM’S IN HAMBURG

               

My Abraham family roots have been traced back to the year 1590 so far. A good deal of the history in 1600’s and 1700’s is rooted in medieval Hamburg. We have planned visits to churches some were either married or baptized in, plus some played leading roles in the early days of Hamburg’s port operations. Hamburg now boasts one of the busiest ports in the entire world.

We also hope to visit other parts of Hamburg’s Altstat including the ornate Renaissance-style Rathaus (City Hall), the nightclub where in 1960 the Beatles launched their music career and the harbor area, a portion of which is being redeveloped as a mixed use community that will ultimately house some 25,000 people.

From Hamburg we’ll drive to the North Sea coast region to the City of Bremerhaven for a two-night stay. Bremerhaven has long been the point of Departure for Germans emigrating to America and other countries. The main reason for this stay is to tour the relatively new interpretive center that has been built in Bremerhaven. It was built to memorialize these people through photos, videos, original documents and exhibits that express the conditions and experiences of these emigrants.

Following two nights in Bremerhaven, we’ll drive to nearby Bremen where we will visit its historic old town center and spend the night at a small hotel. Bremen will complete this seven-day leg of our trip; then we’ll be moving inland visiting moreinteresting places, including the Grimm Brother’s Fairy Tale towns southeasterly of Hamburg.Bremen is also considered one of the Fairy Tale towns.

It would be premature to say more about the Fairy Tale towns here, so be patient. We’ll tell much more when we complete that part of the trip.