1/8/24 Elb Tunnel & St Michaelis

 

      What will today hold for us after yesterday , still a bit blown away by it all , anyway here we go again . Walk to the bus , down to the train station and into the city and down to the docks where all the cruise boats leave from . Today we are walking under the river , yes under the river . There's the Elbtunnel , which crosses underneath the Elb River , not sure what's on the other side , but we're going anyway . The tunnel is 12m below the surface , should say 2 tunnels , but one is undergoing renovations at the moment , so there's only one available , and does it get some traffic - both walkers and cyclists . 

 It was constructed in 1907 , finished in 1911and is 426.5m long 

  The entrance to the lift has been tiled and has the information plaque on it .

   There's also the stairs you can walk down - an interesting walk down ! There's also 3 goods lifts that can take 80 people & bikes - probably also maintenance vehicles .

    There's a pathway both sides and a single lane through the middle , where the cyclists go . The tunnel is tiled with shiny tiles and has regular feature tiles showing river animals & fish .

   Here's one of the good's elevators .

    And the stairs from another view point .

   On reaching the other side , we went skywards again and came to a viewing / picnic area , complete with coffee & lunch vans . Views were back to the city over the docks . The tower is the spire of St Michaelis Church . 

   Hamburg is 110 klms from the North Sea , but is Germany's busiest port , the 3rd busiest port in Europe and 15th busiest in the world !! No wonder there's tugboats pushing barges every direction , cruise boats doing river & canal cruises all day & half the night .

    The domed building ove rthe river is where the tunnel starts or finishes .

    A view of the Elbphilharmonie from across the river .

    A mural on a garage door caught our eye .

    We walked back across and found some lunch , before going towards St Michaelis Church . This mural stood out .

    Germany seems to favour spiral staircases on their buildings , as fire escapes presumably , we've seen plenty .

    We also found a brass map of Hamburg , similar to the one we found at Zagreb , a great way of seeing the way the city lays out .

    After paying our entry fee , we headed into the church , the organ certainly was impressive .

    We got to climb some stairs ( 2 storeys ) then get a lift up to the 10th storey , just below the bells in the tower . Views are over to the port area - no shortage of cranes  !!                                        

    We had a suspicious looking guy come up to Justin , who told him to go away , we kept an eye on him for a while till he disappeared somewhere else - definitely a bit dodgy !!

   No other drama's , we headed home , here's a map link :- https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1hIAVGxq_yZoDscoHnO4B2kmRB0AJYvE&usp=sharing