I chanced upon the venerable Stettin, a lovely icebreaker dating from 1933 this weekend. Well, in…read moretruth, I'd seen her before on a many a visit to the beach, but had passed by the delights of Oevelgoenne museum. Anyway, if you've got 2EUR handy, and you get there before 1800, she is well worth a look! The tour isn't guided, so you are free to clamber around most of the ship, including into the engine room! It houses a beautiful 5-cylinder steam engine, which develops around 2200hp at the cylinders. The pistons and con-rods are of an epic size, hence the rather amusing tooling which is also neatly stacked nearby for maintenance. You can actually fit your head into a few of the spanners. Up on deck, she looks fairly unremarkable, until you get onto the bridge. Interestingly, it contains rather more modern equipment than downstairs, which betrays the fact she saw active service from 1933 all the way up to 2008, a period in which she also saw action during the capture of Copenhagen. All in all, well worth the admission, and one of the highlights of my weekend!

It's one of the companies that offers a round trip around Hamburg harbour. You can do a 1 hour or…read morelonger tour and it's available in German and English. The ticket guy thought we were tourists so offered us a discount on the German tour that was leaving in a few mins :-) I said nothing and took the discount ha ha ha The guide was also the boat captain and was very funny and informative. Took us for a good ride around the harbour and explained everything. Not a bad choice for a boat tour. They have smaller boats for about 30 odd people and they leave from pier 1 or 2 I believe. I would highly recommend you do a boat tour as it's a great way to see the city from the water.

I had come from a tour of the Airbus factory, also in Hamburg. My paddleboat cruise was schedule…read moreto leave at 5:30. As I was taking the ferry from the other side of the harbor, it was heading toward Landungsbruecke 1and I saw the paddleboat pass us going in the other direction about 5:20 PM. The boat must have filled to capacity and left early. I was very disappointed; however, I did receive a full refund which was of only minor consolation.