Bremerhaven makes a triangle with Hamburg and Bremen and was an important port-city with key access to the North Sea. Between 1830 and 1974, 7.2 million people departed from the Bremerhaven harbor, emigrating from Europe and looking for a new life.

We came to Bremerhaven to visit the Deutsches Auswandererhaus (German Emigration Center). It is the largest exhibition on emigration in Europe, and stands on the exact location where so many people said goodbye to their families and their countries forever.

The museum recreates the journey from Europe across the Atlantic for visitors, even giving you the name of an emigrant that you track throughout the voyage. There are so many mannequins and “real-life” displays that while I was standing and waiting for Joe, an old German guy asked me, “Sind Sie echt oder Puppe?” (Are you real or a puppet?!) His eyesight was obviously on the way out!

A recreation of the Harbor in Bremerhaven.

At the end of the journey, you actually “arrive” at Ellis Island and then make your way to Grand Central Terminal. In the 19^th century, 90% of the people emigrating from Bremerhaven departed for the US and 70% of those arrived through Ellis Island. There was a map in the museum, which I found really interesting and quite surprising.

If you can’t read it from the picture, the title of the map is “Descendants of U.S. Immigrants in 2000”. Green is the overwhelming color. Guess what green represents: a majority of the descendants in these states come from Germany. Crazy huh?!

Ok, finally, what Hamburg is really about! After our day exploring the “beach” area up north, we spent our remaining days gettin’ into Hamburg! We had a lot of unique experiences in this large port town: tracing the path of the Beatles (who “burned away their rough edges” in Hamburg), wandering around Groβe Freiheit, re-enacting the execution of Klaus Störtebeker (Hamburg’s beloved pirate) on the banks of HafenCity, finding ourselves in very strange conversations with old German men in antique stores, and a lot of quality time with swans.

I’ll start with the swans. Personally, swans are not my favorite water fowl. I’m not sure why they are so closely associated with love and romance because they are mean, dangerous, and the cause of many issues while trying to enjoy water-side strolls with a small dog. So, we were standing at the Rathausplatz in Hamburg, watching the tourists acting crazy with the swans. One particular tourist was so ridiculous that our tour guide couldn’t keep the group’s attention. He rolled his eyes and said, “Well, the swans are pretty special here in Hamburg so there is nothing we can do about it.”

Computer editing always makes things look more wonderful than they really are.

Back in 1266 a law was enacted in Hamburg which protected the swans from being hunted, harmed, eaten, harassed, and even verbally ridiculed. The swans are so important because of a legend stating that as long as there are swans living on the Alster (the two lakes within Hamburg); Hamburg will remain a free city. If that is true, then I don’t know what to say about the state of the city when looking at his guy:

Yikes! I’ll keep my fingers crossed for Hamburg!

We spent a beautiful afternoon walking along the shores of Hamburg’s two lakes, as well as through Park Planten un Blomen. It is a huge, green oasis in the middle of urban Hamburg and probably one of the nicest parks we have seen in Europe. It is a lovely park, comparable to Central Park (except that nothing compares to Central Park!).

Similar to Hannover, Hamburg has a church which it has not repaired since WWII, leaving it stand as a war memorial. Within the church, St. Nikolai, there is a sculpture of a person sitting on a pile of rubble. The sculpture is called The Ordeal and is a memorial site for Sandbostel, a huge prisoner camp in Lower Saxony where more than 50,000 people perished. The pile of rubble is built from original stones from the prisoners’ barracks from Sandbostel.

The Ordeal sculpture in the lower left corner.

Our favorite corner of Hamburg was definitely Speicherstadt, the redbrick warehouse district. The Speicherstadt used to be the main port area of Hamburg, with spices and wares being stored in the warehouses. Because it is actually a little island, Speicherstadt was free of port taxes in the late 1800s. Obviously, that was only short lived.

Ok, so no matter how I phrase this next sentence, it is going to come across as questionable, wrong, or off-color, so I am just going to put it right out there. I have learned a lot about Germany’s legal prostitute trade during this road trip. Not just in Hamburg, but in the north in general. There is no trying to hide it up here! Here are some observations regarding “ladies of the night” in northern Germany: they work during the day on Sundays too, they are not afraid of soliciting business in front of the police station, and they think fleece-lined moon boots and fanny packs are sexy. There is one street in Hamburg where women and under-agers are “verboten”. I actually read some stories (involving buckets of urine) describing how women (visitors, not workers) are harassed and mistreated if they enter this street. I decided not to take the risk.

There are even miniature representations of north German’s “recreational activities” in the Miniatur Wunderland! I’m not going to go into detail, because I’m sure your imagination won’t be too far from the truth.

Have Recreational Vehicle – will travel.

Hamburg is definitely a dynamic and changing city. It is currently undergoing Europe’s largest urban development project, HafenCity, which will increase the size of the city by 40% (which is already Germany’s second largest). The 2020’s are the time to be in Hamburg! Not only will the Miniatur Wunderland be finished, but the city will need your tourist money to pay the 15 billion Euro price tag for HafenCity. Book your tickets now!

First stop on this beautiful fall day was the UNESCO town of Lübeck! If you like marzipan, Lübeck is the place to go, being a leading world-wide manufacturer since 1806. Personally, I think marzipan tastes like it has been sitting on the shelf since 1806, but that’s just me! The Halstentor city gate is a national icon and what all non-marzipan-lovers come to see.

The Halstentor Gate

Next, we drove on to Kiel for a fish lunch, some seal-viewing, and more importantly, to see the German Marine Ehrenmal in Laboe. Originally a memorial for the Germany Navy, it now serves as an international place of remembrance for all sailors who are “still on patrol”. Beneath the memorial, underground, are flags, wreaths, and plaques from numerous countries, commemorating those who have given their lives at sea.

280 foot memorial on the left, U-Boat on the right

Across from the memorial is a U-Boat museum, which allows you to actually climb through the submarine and see just how cramped it really was. Sorry…it was U-995, not U-571, so no Jon Bon Jovi sighting today.

“I’ll flip you for who sleeps under the torpedo.” “No way, I slept under it last night.” “Okay, I’ll sleep under it tonight, but you have to sleep next to it.” “Deal.”

And finally…after 26 months…we finally made it to the beach in Germany! Joe doesn’t look happy about it, but he really was. It was actually ridiculously sunny on this day.