Long slog from Rotterdam to Hamburg. Three legs — one hour, two hours, and two and a half-hours. First connection allowed only five minutes to change trains. Fortunately, the second train was on the other side of the platform from which we arrived. Made it with plenty of time to spare.

We were delayed on the second trip for almost thirty minutes due to equipment failures. At one point about forty or fifty people passed through our car on the way forward. When our tickets were checked, we were told that a car had to be closed because of air conditioner failure — just glad it wasn’t us.

At the next change we toted our bags for about five minutes only to learn that our train was also delayed for about thirty minutes. But almost immediately a train arrived and the signs said ”Hamburg”. So we got on and went looking for our first class seats. We had seats 112 and 113 (or something) in car 11. The seats in car 11 only went up to the eighties. Asked the conductor(?) and were told that we were on the wrong train. We lucked out and had gotten on an earlier train and did not have to wait for our scheduled train to arrive. We did have to sit in second class seats for two hours — life is hard when you don’t speak the language very well.

Speaking of language problems, we spent too much time trying to figure our the bus/metro line and prices before Bob decided that we should splurge and just take a cab. The price of the cab was almost exactly what we think a one-day metro pass would cost.

Our Airbnb is on the 18th floor of what seems to be one of the tallest buildings in Hamburg.

On the advice of our host, we ate lunch at Rive — a fairly fancy place on the River Elbe — near one of the cruse ship docks (middle picture to the West above). Very nice lunch and a view of industrial Hamburg across the river.

On the way back from lunch, we climbed a million steps, went to a local grocery store for diet coke, fruit, and, of course, ice cream. All in all, a pretty good day.