To Hamburg

May 27, 2025

A train ride and a laundry day.

Today`s entry should be a quick as our day was primarily a relatively short train ride and in the afternoon doing our laundry. Nothing too exciting but very necessary.

The room at the Nena Hotel was very peaceful and the buffet tables had all of the essential goodies that we look for in a great breakfast except there was no yogurt. This was a bit strange but the breakfast was enjoyable none the less. We were not in any rush today so we took our time to retrieve the bikes from the hotel parking garage that was located just down the block. The garage was very interesting. To enter we needed to take a ¨car elevator¨ down one floor to a parking area in the basement of a building. We had never been in an elevator built for cars before and there was certainly lots of room for a couple of bikes. Upon returning to the hotel we loaded up and were off to the train station on a cloudy and very windy morning.

We were quite amazed watching this slick tow truck in operation. We also wanted to say, ¨Hey Kevin - they have your car!¨

The Hotel Nena. Fittingly, our room overlooked the Weser River.

The short ride to the Bremen station was quick and easy with every street well marked for bicycle travel. At the station we did spend quite a bit of time purchasing our tickets. After trying the ticket kiosk we did not feel 100% comfortable that we would get the right train at the right time and ensure our bikes were accounted for as well. After finding the correct ticket office for the regional services, we bought our tickets and then caught a 12:33 train for Hamburg. The distance was surprisingly short as the train took just over an hour to reach our destination. We had to laugh because Scott had planned for us to ride a very small piece of EV3 cycle route (the Pilgrims Route) to Hamburg. His plan would have required two overnights and three days riding to cover the distance we covered by train! However, as we needed to shorten up our overall trip time this cycling was cut out. Instead we did it all in just over a couple of hours.

In Bremen near the train station.The Berlin artist Ben Wagin designed the fragment of the Berlin Wall.

The front of the Bremen train station hall.

All ready to go. The trains and stations are very bicycle friendly.

The train trip required no connections and the large bike car had seats nearby. The train had only three stops on route and most of the travel was through rural areas. The Hamburg HBF is large but navigating our way out and to our nearby hotel was straight forward. We will be staying here for two nights.

Next up was laundry. Using google maps we found a nearby laundromat and gathered up our things to walk about a kilometre to ¨Express Waschcenter¨. Doing our laundry here was different. An easy to like employee of the operation pointed to two empty machines and told us to load them up. Then he took control of the soap, washing machine settings, locked the machines, collected the 6 euros per load and told us to come back in 48 minutes. We returned after having a lunch just down the block and emptied the machines into our laundry bags. Pretty simple.

No muss no fuss here. The easiest laundromat we have ever used.

We had to laugh because on our last trip in Italy every outdoor seating area had a cat. In Hamburg they have ducks. There is a fountain across the street and the restaurant owners put out lunch for them.

In the evening we returned to Spitalerstrasse, one of the Hamburg`s central shopping streets, as the last shops and some restaurants were closing up for the day. We did find an Italian restaurant nearby and enjoyed a basil pesto pasta and salad. Tomorrow we will spend the day as sightseers in Hamburg.

Today's ride: 2 km (1 miles)
Total: 867 km (538 miles)

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