So today we found ourselves sailing down the River Elbe towards
Hamburg, the largest city in Northern Germany and the second largest in the
country as a whole, behind Berlin. As an indication of the size of the River Elbe, we started sailing down the river at 03:00am this morning and only reached Hamburg at 09:00am.
As we sailed we pasted some huge cargo ships, underlining the fact that Hamburg has the second largest port in Europe, next to Rotterdam.A mist hung over the shores of the river.
Hamburg is a good “segway” from Bergen, our
last port of call, as they were both important Hanseatic Ports. In fact the
official name of Hamburg is “Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg”. The Hanseatic
League was a cartel of merchants and the market towns from which they
traded. In a sense it might be
considered an early form of free trade.
