Day 3 - Best of Northern Europe

Change of plans today. We were not able to secure a private tour to Berlin due to short notice. Instead, we took a Hamburg city tour. It was providential as we learned a lot. We did not know that Hamburg was actually a fully sovereign state until the unification of Germany in 1871. Hamburg has a long history as an independent and cosmopolitan harbour city, The first settlement was the Hammaburg fortress, built in 825. It was from here that Saint Ansgar lead missions to evangelise Scandinavia. The Vikings didn’t appreciate his efforts and burned down the moated fortress in 845. It was rebuilt only to be burned down time and again in the following three centuries. Eventually, by the 12th-century trade took over missionary work and Hamburg established itself as a city of merchants. Over the next centuries, Hamburg continued to flourish.. In the 19th century, Hamburg became part of the German Empire but retained its free city status. Hamburg, In modern times gave birth to the cruise industry. It has also become one of the musical capitals in Europe. Even the Beatles launched their international career in the early 60s by playing in the music clubs of the city. We had Lunch at the block house after the city tour where the best steak in Hamburg since 1938 is served. We came back to the hotel and I had a bit of break in the afternoon and got caught a little on my reading of "Homo Deus" - more about the future of mankind, Homo Sapiens 2.0. It is a very interesting read as it says that if in the past, the focus of man was to conquer hunger, plague and major wars, the challenge now is how to conquer death and the prediction is for man to achieve immortality by the early 2100. It claims as well that in this century alone, man will live up to at least 150 years old, the same way we doubled our lifespan as compared to the past century. That means that our apo Braeden will probably be reading his Pinoy side of family history in the next century through our FB postings. Kaya naman, we painstakingly try to catalogue what we do now.