Home Again.....

Well I am home again after my trip to Hamburg, here we are on our outward journey to Hamburg from London Luton International Airport(??)  We arrived at the airport and dumped off our bags a good couple of hours before the flight, we went through to departures and had a look around the shops. I have no idea how they sell anything, I am still to cheap to buy anything from them. We shared a bottle of rose, just to fend off the cold and make it easier to chill out!

It was much better to be able to prebook our seats, we didn't have to rush to get on, although by the time we were there all the over head locker space had gone and we had to put our bags under the seats in front (which wasn't an issue). The flight was lovely, a quick hour and a quarter.

The day before we had a covering of snow, it was pretty obvious once we got into the air.

The further east we travelled the more snow there was. 

Of course we had to warm ourselves with a glass of wine on the flight!

On the first night we went to a nearby bar restaurant, unfortunately we were unable to read German and the menu was only in German. The young waiter was quite helpful so we ended up ordering Omelettes (which appeared to be the same in German!!) and Madeline had a chicken dish (she was better at chatting the young man up!!) Luckily hot chocolate with baileys was the same in both languages!!!

We stayed in Holiday Inn Express Hamburg City Centre  A lovely hotel with the added bonus of a supermarket in the back car park, perfect for nibbles and other supplies!!!

On our arrival there was a fair bit of snow on the ground, we were all a bit worried about slipping over, but the locals were taking it in their stride, they were well kitted out with big boots, coats and cold weather gear. There were even hardy folk on cycles whizzing up and down on the packed ice!!

The next morning after breakfast we called a taxi and went into the city centre to start to explore the markets. I had done my homework and plotted them all on a map, we had a great plan, we would look around the market and shops until we were too tired to carry on (usually about 40 minutes !!) then we stopped for a drink or a bite to eat!!!

Here we are at the start of the day, they had cleared a lot of the snow around the market areas so it was easier to walk around.

By late afternoon we were laden down with our purchases, we were surprised at just how reasonable the prices were, which of course meant that we had lots to carry!

We were amazed at how many decorations there were, everywhere was so pretty, loads of lights and loads of Christmas trees, it must have taken an age to get them all up!!!

Tomorrow I'll post some pictures of some of the stalls.