Ryan really wanted to break up the driving so we left Rotterdam in the afternoon and drove 4 hours to Hamburg, Germany. Personally, I thought it would've been better to just drive straight up to Legoland in one day rather than pay for another hotel, but Ry thought this would be better. (Sidenote: his big client has a site in Hamburg, and I think he secretly wanted to make this stop just to say that he's been there; accountant bragging rights?). So, to indulge my dear husby and satisfy my financial sensibility, I decided we should give a hostel a try. It said "family room" on the internet and had 2 sets of bunkbeds (1 bed for each little person) and a queen for 2 parentals. They gave us sheets when we checked in, but we had to bring in our pillows and blankets from the car. We had a private bathroom, thank goodness, because there are some things that I simply won't share, and a bathroom/shower with strangers is one of them. It was comfortable enough, but it was NO hotel that's for sure. That one little letter changing hotel to hoStel makes a BIG difference.
The next morning, Ryan kept rushing my getting ready process because we had to pay for street parking (no parking garage for this fancy place). He kept having to run down and feed the meter because I was taking "forever," but hey - a girls gotta do what girls gotta do and I needed to feel extra 'fresh and so clean clean' after sleeping there. We checked out of our hostel and ventured into Hamburg to go see the cathedral. We were fighting stupid traffic and almost to the church when I realized that I left my very favorite earrings (my sparkly crystal studs from brighton) on the nightstand at the hostel. Super irritated but ever the gentleman, Ry turned the car around to go back to get my earrings. And they were still there in the same spot (phew!)…probably because no one actually cleans those rooms. So all in all, we got off to a roaring start in Hamburg. Here are the highlights...
Our Hamburg Hostel
St. Michaelis Lutheran Cathedral
The church is dedicated to the Archangel Michael. The bronze statue over the door was our favorite thing that we saw in Hamburg...
That is the Archangel Michael crushing Lucifer's head under his foot.
Town Hall
There was an art exhibit on display in the town hall. I looked over and saw nudey paintings everywhere, so I was glad K was distracted by this fountain. We made a quick 180 and headed back outside for some shopping.
I couldn't find Carv's hat and gloves anywhere, so we headed to H&M to grab some new ones. A few days later, I found them shoved in a hidden pocket in his backpack. Nice move, Carrie.
SO that was actually Day 1. Days 2 & 3 were spent at Legoland. Day 4 was spent in Copenhagen. We had a few different options before driving home on Day 5 - we could go see more of Copenhagen, drive out to one of the palaces we hadn't seen yet, drive over to Sweden, or drive to Roskilde to see the cathedral there. We chose the last 2 options to cram in as much site seeing as possible.
Our trip to Sweden was a quick one, again mostly for bragging rights. We were so close to it, and wanted to just walk around quickly and claim that we had been there. Plus, I don't know if we'll ever make it back this way (at least not while living in the NL), so this might be our only chance to see Sweden. Like Denmark, it definitely has a cleaner, more modern feel than other European countries we have visited. It was also more Americanized - we saw a lot more chains that we recognized and everyone spoke English perfectly. They weren't even the least bit rude about switching over to English for tourists, which was nice for us, and also different than most places we've been to. All in all, the best part was driving over the Baltic Sea on this fabulous manmade bridge. It was really something to see...
Bridge over the Baltic - seriously, how did they build this? And how the heck did they get all those windmills out there?
Windmills standing tall out in the Baltic…amazing.
After driving across the wonderous bridge, we learned that the toll was 80 euros! 80 EUROS - for one way!!! Well, had we known that before we drove over there, we might have changed our plans. But alas, the drive across the Baltic had already been made. *update - Ry reminded me after reading this that it was actually 80 round trip, so 40 each way. I guess I was being dramatic, imagine that* So in Malmo...
While in Malmo, we snapped a quick pic for Ry and the kids to show all the Anderson family & cousins. The Anderson family originated in Sweden, so now we can all say that they've been to the motherland.
And I snapped a quick pic for my friend from hs Alicia, who's grandmother is from Sweden. She has the cutest line of personalized baby stuff called "Sweetish Baby" and I knew she would appreciate our stop in Sweden.
After our jaunt to Sweden, we drove over to the Roskilde Cathedral in Denmark. This is a Unesco World Heritage Site, which basically means it's worth seeing. It was huge and really pretty.
A view from the back of the Cathedral.
Many of the Danish royals are entombed here. The place went on and on…just when you thought you had seen it all, you would discover another side room filled with elaborate tombs.
And the doors, OH the doors! There were beautiful doors everywhere, each with a different design and size…which of course kept us wondering: what are they hiding behind all these doors?!?
And then we found it: A real secret passage way! We are all convinced that they are hiding something Indiana Jones worthy back there. Carver was literally climbing right in and was a little stunned when we stopped him. "Wait, you mean, you DON'T want me to see if the Holy Grail is back there?!?"
Here is the overview of our side trips…
After returning home and checking my email, I learned from a friend that if we would've chosen the 'drive out to other palaces' option for our side trip, we could've seen all of the original Carl Bloch paintings that we see copies of so often in our church buildings. That would've been like the cream cheese icing on our Easter weekend carrot cake. But who am I to complain, it was a marvelous trip and we are grateful to have taken it.
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