Day #9: “History is fun!” - The History Teacher
This morning we were blessed with a late morning start. The singers (and chaperones!) got to sleep in and enjoy a lazy morning in Hamburg. We finally met together at 11am to start our day’s adventure.
Our first stop was an organ concert at Saint Michael’s Cathedral. For twenty minutes, we were all transported across time as we enjoyed three different pieces from their myriad of organs in the cathedral. For one piece, two organs were even played together as an almost symphonic duet. It was quite the experience! After the organ concert, the students were allowed to sing one song in the cathedral. The acoustics were other-worldly - hopefully some of that was captured in video.
We then had lunch at the food trucks as part of the Wochenmarkt Großneumarkt. The singers tried all sorts of fun foods - currywurst, bratwurst, spätzle, kaiserschmarrn, falafel, and some took advantage of the market’s fresh fruits & veggies! Most singers then topped it all off with ice cream!
“The Second World War. We started it, and it should never have happened so we leave little reminders of what happened.” - Hamburg River Cruise Tour Guide [Waterfront left un-repaired since Hamburg’s bombing during World War 2)
Our second official stop of the day was a boat tour of Hamburg Port. We learned all sorts of fun facts along this river cruise, like the fact that Hamburg is the third largest port in Europe despite being 120 KM inland from the North Sea! We also learned that Hamburg houses a UNESCO World Heritage Site: Speicherstadt and Kontorhaus District, which is one of the largest unified historic port warehouse complexes in the world, as well as a beautifully sustained testament to early 20th century architecture. Hamburg also has the most bridges of any city in the world with 2,496! We sang quite a few songs on the boat tour, and our captain even made a special request at the end!
After our lovely hour-long canal ride, we had a quick Souvenir/ice cream stop before heading back to the hotel to regroup for dinner. Tomorrow we have a long bus trip to Hochhausen, so we called it for an earlier evening.
