{"id":2489,"date":"2013-12-24T06:49:14","date_gmt":"2013-12-24T11:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/?p=2489"},"modified":"2013-12-26T17:47:53","modified_gmt":"2013-12-26T22:47:53","slug":"hamburg-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/2013\/12\/24\/hamburg-germany\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamburg, Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last stop on our tour of the German Christmas markets was Hamburg.\u00a0 While probably not the first place most people would think about visiting in Germany, it was one of my favorites and by far the best for the girls.\u00a0 Honeybun was 2 \u00bd years old and Sugarplum was only 5 months during our German adventure and while we could take them most anywhere and they behaved well, we were all ready for a few more fun and lighthearted things after \u00a0exploring the country\u2019s dark history of recent times.\u00a0 After 10 days of driving from\u00a0Munich<\/a>\u00a0to Hamburg via\u00a0<\/span>Nurnberg, Leipzig, Wittenberg<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Berlin<\/a>; visiting castles, historical sights and museums and behaving so well, the girls deserved to do a few things aimed at them and Hamburg did not disappoint!<\/span><\/p>\n

We arrived in Hamburg from\u00a0Berlin<\/a>\u00a0in the early afternoon and after checking into our hotel, we headed to the Minitur Wunderland, a huge, intricate, amazing, mesmerizing working model train museum.\u00a0 We spent two hours engrossed in the trains going round and round and the people and cars moving around the buildings lighting up as the museum turned from day to night every so often but we could have stayed for days.\u00a0 My grandfather had a large model train set up in his basement and my Daddy, who is a big model train fan, was like a small child and even little Sugarplum was engrossed in the action.\u00a0 The museum features many different areas including \u201cAmerica\u201d, \u201cScandinavia\u201d, and an airport with airplanes that take off and land (this part was in the final prep phases when we visited).<\/span><\/p>\n

\"DSC04588\"\u00a0\"DSC04573\"<\/a> \"DSC04576\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The next day we visited the Ballinstadt which I found extremely fascinating.\u00a0 Many American immigrants that came through Ellis Island, started their journey in Hamburg and the Ballinstadt chronicles that journey with a hands-on exhibit covering every aspect of the journey from start to finish and even a little bit on the living conditions the immigrants were met with once across the ocean.\u00a0 Honeybun stayed engrossed in the museum throughout our visit as there was so much to see and interact with.<\/p>\n

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That afternoon we went to the Prototyp Car Museum.\u00a0 It\u2019s an indoor exhibit of lots of rare and expensive cars.\u00a0 You can even sit in some and there are also driving simulators.\u00a0 This museum wasn\u2019t a hit with our whole group but I\u2019m pleased with our experience and Honeybun loved prentending to drive.<\/p>\n

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After the Prototyp we headed towards the main Christmas market where we wandered the market and the local stores and did some of our Christmas shopping.\u00a0 We also happened to get to see a parade go through as we finished up our shopping!<\/p>\n

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The next morning we went to the Tierpakr Hagenback (Hamburg zoo).\u00a0 While it was too cold and snowy to do the outdoor zoo, they also have an extensive indoor aquarium that we all enjoyed.\u00a0 You cannot take your own buggy into the aquarium but they have something you can borrow (I can\u2019t remember if it\u2019s their buggy or a baby carrier) but I just carried Sugarplum in my ringsling.\u00a0 The visit starts with a lemur exhibit where the lemurs are free to roam about the enclosure with you \u00a0and the girls thought it was fantastic when one climbed on Grandma\u2019s back!\u00a0 The visit includes tons of different kinds of aquariums with various sea life as well as many exhibits with reptiles.\u00a0 It was a great, easygoing finish to our Germany adventure before heading off to the airport.<\/p>\n

\"DSC04510\"<\/a> \"DSC04675\"<\/a> \"DSC04682\"<\/a><\/p>\n

12 days, 6 cities, 5 hotels, 2 huge vans, 100+ mph speeds on the autobahn and snow every day resulted in some really amazing memories and a much deserved rest when we got back to Dublin!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last stop on our tour of the German Christmas markets was Hamburg.\u00a0 While probably not the first place most people would think about visiting in Germany, it was one of my favorites and by far the best for the girls.\u00a0 Honeybun was 2 \u00bd years old and Sugarplum was only 5 months during our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-ties","category-tiny-travellers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2489"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2509,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489\/revisions\/2509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}