Our friends Lindsay and Connie have a house in Hamburg.  On the long weekend in May we went to stay with Lindz and Connie and have a "locals" tour. We were supposed to arrive on Friday night, but the M4 motorway was "slightly" blocked and we took over 2 hours to get to Heathrow (a journey of 30 mins), so we missed our plane.  bmi British Midland were great and re-ticketed us first-thing Saturday.  By the time we arrived at Heathrow and swapped tickets, the M4 was really bad the other way, so using my mobile, I booked a room at the Heathrow Le Meridien.  The re-ticketing and the hotel was all booked/arranged via the mobile.  What did we do before these things??  Anyway, Lindz and Connie came to the airport and we had a great day walking around Hamburg - shopping, eating Wurst and Sauerkraut from street vendors (yummy...) and having a great time being shown around by locals.  Also having fluent German speakers around really helped.  Lindz took us on a tour to the north of Hamburg to the sea and we went and saw the German Submarine memorial at Kiel.  This is the only German War Memorial, I've seen, that is "proud" about the fighting men that died.

We also saw the St Nikolai Church which was bombed by the Allies during the war and has been left as a memorial.

St Nikolai Church in Hamburg.
St Nikolai Church Steeple - 62k 		St Nikolai Church in Hamburg - The wording is "Symbol for the Peace" "International Meeting Place".
St Nikolai Church Banner - 102k
We went to the "beach" in Kiel (near the Submarine Memorial) and there were these little huts, so you don't get frozen or sandblasted to death while "sunbathing".
Kiel Beach - 111k
Submarine Memorial - The sky is very overexposed as it was a very grey and cold day.
Submarine Memorial - 33k Submarine Memorial - 88k
Submarine Memorial - 67k Submarine Memorial - 83k
Lastly the U-995 parked on the beach at Laboe.  You can go through as a tour and it is so small!  I had no idea it was so claustrophobic.  It really makes "Das Boot" a lot more interesting when you can see how and where the submariners lived and worked.  This particular U-Boat was given to the Royal Norwegian Navy as reparation, then returned to Germany in 1971.  If you want a little history click here.
U995 - 62k U995 - 47k