Norwegian Odyssey Day 13, Tuesday 7 January: Gothenburg to Hamburg

We were awake early as we had lots of miles to cover.

 

The breakfast on the boat was pretty decent - though there was only us and staff at that hour.

We were packed up, unplugged, and on the road before 8am, in an attempt to beat the traffic. It wasn't very bad, but we also didn't have much of it to content with.

Our first driving leg was just over an hour and a half, through unremarkable motorways. We stopped at a supercharger at the Melby Centre, which had some fairly exciting shopping. We picked up some gifts, some kitchen bag fasteners and some tasty treats for the road. What we didn't know at the time was that it was quite close to the coast.

Then another two-hour driving stretch, which took us past Helsingborg, which we'd looked across to from Helsingor a few years before, and over the Øresund bridge into Denmark. We had pre-paid our crossing, but for some reason they couldn't find our booking. I provided our booking reference, but they seemed not to find that either. It was a bit confusing what we were supposed to do, but since we'd paid, when the woman waved us away from the window, we drove off and started our crossing.

The bridge was less exciting than I'd imagined - flat and misty. Once or twice we could see land below. The pylons were impossibly huge, with the wires yawning and reaching towards you. The rail line next to the bridge disappeared into a tunnel soon after the bridge met land again.

We drove past the southern suburbs of Copenhagen, which I felt like I recognised from our journey to the airport. We stopped for a charge soon after in a huge covered supercharger at a Circle K in Koge. We chose Burger King for lunch.

After this, there was another stretch of driving for two and a quarter hours, which took us over the Great Belt East (Storebæltsbroen) bridge. This was a bit longer than the Øresund, and had much more interesting pylons. It's actually two spans joined by a piece of land in the middle.

This took us to the Danish island that holds Odense. We then headed to its north-west tip to cross another bridge (the New Little Belt bridge - Lillebæltsbroen), which took us back to the part of Denmark we'd travelled north on.

A short drive then took us to our next supercharger in services at Rødekro. It was a long stop, but only had a Shell.

And then it was only two hours and 10 to Hamburg. We got a bit caught by roadworks on the motorway exit, and the drive through the city wasn't terribly fun, but we made it to the Holiday Inn, which was chosen for its proximity to our escape route.

We arrived at about 6.30, and while I stayed in the car, Christian negotiated the collection of the mixing desk he'd arranged to have delivered there. We took the car down into the basement car park, and took ourselves, our luggage, and the desk to our rooms. Christian took it out of its box and admired it, but then we had to go and meet Tom for dinner.

We ordered a taxi to meet him at a major train station, and then walked through some of the city to the beerhouse he'd chosen (Brauhaus Johann Albrecht). It was very nice - I had assorted sausages and sauerkraut, and a half litre of weissbier.

 

From there, he took us through the riverside warehouse district to see the Elbphilharmonie, which was quite a walk away. The building overlooks the main river, and is incredibly high, with a huge and popular viewing platform at the top. As we arrived, the opera/show was ending, but we took the escalators all the way to the top, against the crowd.

The view was pretty amazing, of primarily the sea freight and the river network, and of the city too. But Christian was tired, and I was feeling rough in the stomach again, so we called it a night.

We made a plan for the next day, and said goodbye to Tom. Christian and I got a taxi back to the hotel.