So, it was time to bid farewell to Wacken / Heide and start the journey home. I’d built in a day in Hamburg as it’s another city I’d not visited before.

The traffic was “fun” as Mark drove us from my hostel to the city centre. The additional traffic due to everyone leaving Wacken is well handled, but things do happen… like a vehicle fire on one of the main routes out of the festival! For those on public transport, they increase the capacity of the trains and put on extra services.

It took us a little over ninety minutes to get to Hamburg, Mark dropping me at the main train station where I found a left luggage locker to store my suitcase for €4. Cheap enough. The next thing I noticed was that Germany is a little like the UK around twenty years ago… in two ways. One: smoking still seems that bit more acceptable and far too many people still do it (including one heavily pregnant woman I spotted, for f_ck’s sake). Two: lots of stuff is closed on a Sunday.

While the train station was busy, the city streets around it were not. Most of the restaurants and cafés were open, but not a single shop. Talking of food, Germans certainly seem to like theirs judging by the sheer number and variety of outlets you find at their train stations! Not content with an overpriced bakery and a coffee shop like we usually get, I’d estimate that Hamburg HBF played host to at least forty fooderies as well as a couple of other outlets.

Well, I was here to see a bit of Hamburg so I did. I aimed myself at the watery area to the south and just… wandered. The first thing I found was the town hall, which currently has an exhibition detailing the lives and thoughts of a handful of transgender people. All in German (though there are QR codes linking to English language websites for us foreigners) it was a simple yet heartwarming place to spend a little while. It’s also a staggering building.

Lunch was needed, so I found a nice spot and took a pitstop to try and eat some of the food I had left from the festival. I perched on some steps by the Binnenalster, the south of which was playing host to a lot of stalls as part of the local Pride celebrations. A cool breeze, lovely view and people running around in rainbow flags made for a very pleasant way to pass some time.

Afterwards, By luck I came across Google’s German offices and grabbed a quick selfie there. Sadly, it was closed to I didn’t get to see what wonderful décor they had inside (not that I would have been able to get in anyway).

I spotted a few towers as I walked, so geared my ambling towards them. One, the magnificent Lookout Tower (part of the St Nikolai memorial), looks like one of the oldest in the city. I didn’t go up the lift inside, but the tower is a staggering piece of architecture. It’s the highest church tower in the city (fifth highest in the world) and if it was designed to be imposing then it works.

The church acted as a reference point for allied bombers during the war and was itself hit in 1943. It now serves as a memorial to the tens of thousands killed by the bombing raids. There are a lot of building works going on nearby, so I hope it doesn’t get obscured.

Next up was St Katharine’s which chimed the hour as I walked past, reaching the port area which is hugely impressive. More impressive are the potential water levels which can break the (very high) banks of the waterways during the flood season!

There is a lot in this area, the south bank, including the Hamburg Dungeon, Maritime Museum, Mechanical Museum and the Miniatur Wunderland… which I’d forgotten was in Hamburg until after I’d arrived. You need to book in advance for this. While you can walk up, the waiting time to get in (as they have to limit the numbers inside at any one time) can extend into several hours – three by the time I walked in. If I’d realised beforehand, I would have booked my ticket weeks ago. Next time, definitely!

By now I was actually starting the flag. The last few days have really been catching up, so I decided to head to the airport. Thankfully, Hamburg makes this very easy. Hop on an S1 train from platform 3 at the main strain station, makes sure you get on one of the first three carriages, and you’re there in 25 minutes. All for the tiny price of €3.30.

I’d already checked in, so I’m now sat at the McDs in the check-in lounge (there isn’t one after security) using one of their plug sockets to charge my phone. I should probably buy something but I’m not hungry!

My flight’s delayed by 30 minutes, so not due to take off until 22:15 local time. I should land in Edinburgh around 23:05, and with luck will be on a Megabus to Glasgow before midnight. An hour to get there and then a ninety minute walk home.

My own bed! For three nights. Then off to Bloodstock…

And an update…

I was walking to my gate after finding about the only not-stupidly-overpriced item in the Duty Free for my son when I saw a familiar t-shirt. Was that Joe and the band he manages, who have just played Wacken and who would possibly be heading home… which happens to be Glasgow? A quick facebook message confirmed it was and I spent the rest of the evening in the company of Saor. A lovely bunch of hard-working musicians, who cruelly (!) “forced” me to drink Jagermeister.

The company was welcome because our flight was further delayed (of course it was), and we also had some fun as the staff at the airport, specifically a couple of Emirates reps, had no idea what gate our flight would be at. Lesson learned: believe the police and the boards, ignore Emirates staff as they’re bloody clueless.

Back in Blighty, Joe offered me a lift back to Glasgow as they had a spare seat in their van. Better than hanging around for an hour and booking a last-minute Megabus! I gratefully accepted, and was dropped off pretty much where I’d have arrived anyway, only a fair bit earlier. The walk home was a little over an hour, but it pretty much killed my suitcase as the dodgy wheel, knackered in my initial train-chasing sprint 10 days earlier, seized so I ended up partially dragging my bag home rather than just rolling it. As a result, said wheel is now half a wheel having been scraped away across three miles of paving slabs. RIP cheap suitcase.

I got back to the flat around 3:15am and to bed around 7:30 after trying to catch up on work, do a laundry, drink tea (which I couldn’t as I had no milk) and generally just faff around like an idiot instead of getting sleep.

Anyway, Bloodstock in 3 days time!