A Day of 2 Exhibitions Followed By a Day of 2 Pretzels

We're close to wrapping up our 4 days in Hamburg and this is the summary of the last 2 days.  On Thursday, our activities started with a visit to the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the art museum, just a short walk from our hotel.  It is quite a large museum and we started with the temporary Surrealism exhibit.  Dali, Ernst and more.

As we were leaving the Surrealism exhibit, we had the opportunity to create our own surreal poetry.  Linda's:

Mine:

We then made our way to the permanent exhibits and I was happy to find a few from the Dutch Masters.

There was also a painting of St. George slaying the dragon which I had to contrast with the mural in the area where we are staying.

And also, for contrast, the Atlantic Hotel has interesting paintings by one artist on each of the 4 floors.

It has been a while since we've been to a large art museum like that and it was a good 2 hour visit.  Although, I enjoyed our time there a bit more than Linda.

After the museum, we had a quick picnic lunch by the lake while they were cleaning our room.

For the evening activity, I had booked a 7:30 pm slot at the Miniatur Wunderland.  It is quite a popular attraction and I had booked the slot in March!  It was a good 45 minute walk from our hotel.  Okay, Google said that it should only take about 30 minutes so I guess we're slow walkers these days.  Along the way, we passed the St. Nikolai Memorial, a church destroyed in WWII.

We then passed a couple of restaurants before coming upon the Kartoffel Keller, the potato cellar.  I went for the potato dumplings with a mango-curry sauce, while Linda opted for the potato pancakes with smoked salmon and horseradish sauce.  Both were really good.

We finally made it to the Miniatur Wunderland and were excited after all of the hype.

It is a huge "wonderland" spread over 2 buildings with miniature models of places around the world.  While I admired the amount of work it took and the fine details of the models, I found some flaws that, for me, put a real damper on the experience.  First, and most importantly, it is far too crowded.  Many times we could not get close to exhibits.

Then, at times, they dim the lights way down to simulate night but, for me, they leave the lights off far too long.

And, finally, it is so overwhelming that I actually got tired of looking at the displays.  But, here are a few photos.

In contrast to the Kunsthalle, Linda enjoyed the Miniatur Wunderland more than I did.  On the walk back to the hotel, we passed the old warehouse district and an interesting random plant.

Friday, our last full day in Hamburg, was a park day.  At breakfast, we picked up a few things to bring along for a picnic in the park - including a pretzel at last.  We walked to the Planten un Blomen park and found a bench to enjoy our picnic.

After the picnic, we walked around the very large park until we concluded that we were both very fatigued.  According to the pedometer on my phone, I have accumulated almost 75,000 steps over the 4 days in Hamburg.

On the way back to the hotel, we passed the Hofbrau again and I could not resist having another beer and another pretzel while Linda enjoyed a sparkling apple juice.

Tomorrow morning we fly to Ljubljana, Slovenia for the next phase of our adventure.  We've both enjoyed our time in Hamburg and have done the things we wanted to do.  Would we go out of our way to return?  Probably not.

Now, for another deviation from the Rules of Civility.  In the Kunsthalle, they had some quotations on the walls and I particularly liked this one:

Playing is experimenting with chance.

All chance is wonderful.

Peace, blessings, and chance,

Linda and Larry