Poco Loco: Healthcare Holiday in Hamburg

We have the top floor suite in Sternhauser Service Apartments

One of thousands of trails in north Hamburg

Our trip to Hamburg began Friday, April 25 flying Air Canada from Regina, SK. We're here in Hamburg for our 5th, and hopefully last, time to see Professor Seegenschmiedt at the Strahlenzentrum Hamburg Nord radiation clinic.
Although not too serious a health problem, the professor is the world authority and also the least expensive place to treat Dupuytren's Contracture. Easily treated and usually cured at this clinic but no treatment available in Canada. So I have come here for four separate weeks of treatment on each of my hands, and now Chris is here for her second, and last treatment for the same problem in her right hand, triggered from her Canadian carpal tunnel surgery.

Hamburg harbour

Anyway, we love Hamburg. It is a beautiful city with more trees per square mile and more bridges than any other city in Europe. Huge green spaces with parks and forested trails are throughout the city, often so much that it feels like you are in a giant park with occasional homes and apartment blocks appearing here and there. Although mostly known as a port city, with more extensive waterfront warehousing than anywhere else in Europe, I now know it as the most park-like, green city in all of Europe. I would highly recommend a visit.

Hamburg port warehousing, "Speicherstadt"

As we were in Hamburg over May 1, we had a lot of free time. May Day is a huge national holiday so the clinic was closed on the Thursday and Friday. Treatments are normally Mon-Fri but this time they were Sun-Wed in a compressed schedule. We already had a furnished executive stay apartment rented for a full week as well as having booked a return flight on the Saturday, before learning of the holiday schedule. So besides wandering around Hamburg on treatment days, we were able to take a train for about a 45 minute ride to the Hanseatic city of Lubeck, Germany, a UNESCO world heritage site.

The Holsten Gate, Lubeck, Germany

Founded in 1143 on the Baltic coast of northern Germany, Lübeck was from 1230 to 1535 one of the principal cities of the Hanseatic League, a league of merchant cities which came to hold a monopoly over the trade of the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. The old part of Lubeck is surrounded by water and is a beautiful medieval town. All of the sights can easily be seen in a leisurely 2 to 3 hour walk. We found a great little bakery restaurant for lunch then caught the train back to Hamburg.

For Friday, our last day in Hamburg we decided to take the train towards downtown but get off a few stops early at Kellinghusenstrasse station. Every time we go by that stop we notice what a beautiful neighbourhood it is in that area so we decided to do a little exploring.

It turned out to be a very upscale yuppy sort of area with a beautiful old-world style spa in a HUGE old brick and glass building right by the train stop. We walked along the streets checking out all the small shops then happened upon a great produce market several blocks long underneath the overhead train tracks. It must have taken us at least an hour to walk through the whole thing. We found a nice German restaurant at the end of it and warmed up with a meal and coffee then walked back to catch our train back to our apartment. Saturday morning we caught the train to the airport and headed back to Regina to finally return to Canada after roaming the world a little bit most of the time since last July.