Alster

Having mentioned The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare to my dad on the train down to Hamburg, we of course had to watch the whole movie once we got to our room at the Prize Hotel (Radisson’s latest budget brand) on Recha-Lübke-Damm.

 

Five short hours of adrenaline-stressed sleep later, I laced up my grey “Hoka Harbour Mist” Cliftons (what else?) for twelve faster photo-interval kilometres around lake Alster and into the old town of Hamburg. There is something about running through leafy German neighbourhoods with white-stucco mansions that gets me every time.

Passing the Hotel Atlantic, which opened in 1909 to accommodate passengers of the Hamburg-Amerika Linie and was later used as a backdrop in Tomorrow Never Dies, felt like the perfect way of connecting the dots. After a short Teams meeting with my colleagues in Halmstad, the plan is to take a walk with dad before heading out by taxi to the port, where the Queen Mary 2 is waiting for us.