In Hamburg (continued) and south to Soltau, (north of Celle)

You can´t go to Hamburg without a visit to Miniature World.  Words can´t really describe this place: the detail is amazing, the scale of the place is monstrous. Every 15 minutes or so, it gets dark.  This is quite tricky, as it was really crowded in there, but the nighttime scenes give an extra dimension to the exhibits.  There was quite a moving display of the Berlin Wall area from 1945 to 1989, in 6 scenes, really cleverly done. There was so much detail on the models, you couldn´t hope to see everything in a single visit.  For photos and more comment, look on Jason and Julie´s website, www.ourtour.co.uk, for 29th August.  Our photos will appear in due course.

The next day, we decided at the last minute to go into Hamburg again, as Maggie wanted to go on the "organ tour" of St Jakobi Kirche. As we had a little time to spare, we thought we could fist visit the Kramer- Witwe-Wohnung (The Widow´s House), as it was not too far away. This is Hamburg´s oldest lane of terracd houses, and a beautifully preserved and quite fascinating slice of 17th Century history. The Krameramt was the Guild of Shopkeepers, trading mainly in silk, spices and iron wares. In 1676, the wealthy guild built the houses to provide accommodation for the widows of its members, hence freeing up shop accommodation for other members. The Wohnung museum is furnished in the style of a later period, and demonstrates the living conditions of middle class Hamburg citizens in the 19th century. On the ground floor is small living room and kitchen, the first floor has a sewing table and bedroom furniture.  In the attic is a drying loft, with a clothes-horse projecting out from the window, and nearly touching that of the house opposite in the narrow lane. These facilities look very poor to us, but by the standards of the time, they were a very comfortable and progressive arrangement. Some lovely individual shops complete this charming little arcade.

We continued on foot to St Jakobi Kirche. About 12 people crammed into the organ loft for a free "tour".  This took an hour, and was really informative, demonstrating all 60 stops, and various registrations.  The organ was built in 1693 by Arp Schnitger, and has 4 manuals and a pedal board. The cymbal and Trommel stops make a sound without pressing any key, and another stop sounds like renaissance bagpipes.

After all that excitement, we set Moaning Minnie to find the aire (at a campsite) in Soltau, but Minnie just couldn´t see the main entrance, and sent us round in a huge loop, via dead end, before we could work out where she was trying to get to.