After a beautiful breakfast buffet we jumped on the hop-on, hop-off bus. As Hamburg has no Medieval town square we decided the bus tour was the best way to get oriented. After a complete tour we hopped off and explored a bit on foot. 
The lowlight of the bus tour was the drive through the Reeperbahn, a more sorrowful and tawdry looking place would be hard to imagine. It makes Main & Hasting look like the Vegas strip. The highlight was the amazing harbour – Europe’s largest with miles of brick warehouses and canals. Hamburg has approximately 1400 bridges, more than Venice and Amsterdam combined. We hopped a harbour tour, lounging on the open top deck with a cold one in our hands, we cruised passed the immense Blohm and Voss shipyards where ships such as the Bismarck were built. 
We returned to the dock passing the new Elbphilharmonie, a multi million dollar, state of the art, concert hall. 
Disembarking, Liz had read about the Elbe pedestrian tunnel, which was located close by. Descending into the depths we walked the tunnel and, for the first time in days, felt cool.
Realizing our harbour tour had not included any of the canals or warehouse district we went in search of one that did. Winding up down by the concert hall, we managed to catch the last cruise of the day.
I would probably have enjoyed this wonderful cruise more if the combination of the mystery German tablets, copious beer and strength sapping heat and sun hadn’t reduced me to a sweating, sniffling lump.
Dinner at a repurposed fire boat topped off a busy day.
Decaigny Abroad 