Our Germany Adventure - First Stop Hannover

We had both individually been to Germany before, but this was our first trip together. Considering I learned to speak German growing up, it was assumed that I'd be the one doing all the communicating on this trip as well... the sad reality was that my language skills were rather rusty so not to be counted on. Though the more immersed we were and towards the end of the trip, I felt my abilities were coming back even though I didn't really get the confidence to try and hold a long conversation with anyone. It did come in handy at one point in the trip where we had an issue with a train, but more on that a bit later. 

After a bit of a last minute kerfuffle on departure morning where my seat changed and had me sitting in another part of the plane, we boarded our overnight flight that brought us into Frankfurt fairly early in the morning. Z being an amazing gentleman, let me take his more comfortable seat instead. Not too long before our journey to Germany, Europe introduced a new electronic entry/exit system and we had read enough nightmare stories of people missing flights that we made sure to give us enough time upon arrival to make it through immigration before we needed to catch our train to Hamburg. What we didn't anticipate when we booked this trip was that Europe would be undergoing an extreme heat wave and we ended up arriving on one of the hottest days of the summer at that point in time and with a lack of air conditioning in general, it made for a pretty warm and stuffy wait in the immigration line. When we arrived, we went through the new electronic entry system, which didn't actually work very well and we were directed towards the line up for immigration regardless, except that we had to get into a line up for the line up and realized this would take hours! We could have skipped trying out the new system but we still would have had to wait hours to make it through. Thankfully though after waiting maybe 10 minutes tops, an airport worker announced to those in this back up line up to follow him as he would take us to another area of the airport to go through immigration there.... these four agents had no one waiting for them until our big group showed up and it was a bit chaotic at first to get into proper lines. It still took a descent amount of time to get through as the agents really didn't have any sense of urgency to move people through. Eventually our turn came and we were through and then had a couple hours to kill before we needed to catch our train. Now with the immense heat wave, little did we know the impact it would have on the train system, so when we arrived at Frankfurt am Main we discovered that our train was delayed. With no air conditioning, breeze or real air flow at the train station, this eventually became uncomfortable for me. We did find some relief in the food court which had fans blowing the hot air around, so at least we could sit there while we waited out the delay. Now while the heat wave was the cause of our arrival day train delay, we discovered that the train system is no longer as on time and reliable as I remembered it or has historically always been thought to be. We took the Deutsche Bahn ICE train direct which took about 2 hour 15 minutes. The train ride itself was pleasant once we got going... we had preselected seats, but didn't realize they were in a train cabin with four other seats. There were three others on the train and by the time we got on the luggage storage areas were mostly taken, so thankfully we didn't have anyone beside us and we could put one of our suitcases on the seat with the other on the floor, cramming Z's leg space somewhat. From the Hannover Central Station we boarded the local tram which brought us to our hotel, the Sheraton Hannover Pelikan Hotel. This hotel is located in the restored former Pelikan fountain pen factory and blends its unique history with modern day decor. The hotel is a short walk from the tram station which was fantastic for getting around. We stayed in a deluxe room which had a large separate living room and bedroom with air conditioning - which was much needed to escape from the heat. The room had really high ceilings with very large tall windows as well. The room decor was all writing themed with a quote from Mark Twain over the bed "Writing is easy, you just have to leave out the wrong words". It was a very comfortable stay to get us into the Germany zone. The hotel had a lovely breakfast buffet that we were also able to enjoy. 

On the evening of our arrival we met up with our friends who had recently moved to Hannover for a milestone birthday dinner for one of them. This was actually the reason for our trip. For the next couple of days we played tourists with them in their new home town. We strolled through the old town marvelling at the beautiful architecture of all the buildings, including the neo-classical Opera House. It was a mix of colourful half-timbered houses and red brick buildings. The streets were mostly cobblestone and were lined with shops, cafes and restaurants. The old town was quite quaint and cozy and easy to get around on foot or on the tram system. 

We stopped in at the new town hall for a bit of a reprieve from the heat - when you first step in you are taken aback by the 38-metre high main hall with beautifully carved stone walls. In the main foyer you'll find four miniature town models that depict Hannover in 1689, 1939, 1945, and present day. It's fascinating to see how the city evolved over that time span and the destruction that took place in two world wars. Walking around the city you could also notice the striking differences in architecture from buildings that were bombed during the war and those that were spared/missed right next door. While seeing the town models was a highlight of this visit, the real highlight was the 360 viewpoint of the city from the dome. To get there you have to take a unique inclined elevator; one of a kind in Europe. The elevator has a transparent floor and roof which allows you to see the angle while going up and down. The lift was built in 1913. It starts vertically before shifting sideways by over 8 meters along the irregular 17-degree parabolic curve of the dome while it travels up 43 metres tilting the cabin as it rises to reach the 97.7 metre high viewing platform. It was a pretty strange sensation riding the lift hoping it would make the 2 minute journey up and down without any issue because it's pretty crammed quarters fitting only six people total with little room to move. It was very worth it though because the views from the top were stunning and we were lucky with having a very clear day. 

The Aegidienkirche is a church built in the 12th century and destroyed in 1943 during the war. The church was never rebuilt and the ruins remain there today as a somber reminder of the tragedy of the war. The Peace Bell which hangs in the tower entrance of the bombed-out church was donated in 1985 by Hiroshima, Japan, which is a sister city of Hannover as a symbol of peace and international reconciliation. 

We spent some time exploring Kröpcke which is the main pedestrian square and the social and commercial heart of the city. This is also where our friends currently live. So it was cool to see their neighbourhood and check out the shops, restaurants and cafes and the general vibe. The Kröpcke clock is an iconic landmark and popular meeting point. The U-Bahn transit hub is located here underground as well. 

Herrenhausen Gardens are a beautiful and peaceful, 50 hect
ares of sprawling botanical gardens that are worth a visit. These gardens date back more than 300 years and were originally planted for the royal court for their summer palace grounds. The gardens are beautifully manicured and are designed in quadrants with a fountain in the centre. Statues line different parts of the garden, including an area filled with golden statues. 

The city also has a lot of green space and about 500kms of bike lanes making it a very beautiful and livable city. Apparently there is a city rule that says from every place you need to have a 10 minute walk max to a park.  

FIFA World Cup was going on while we were touring around Germany and there was no shortage of places to catch any game. The best place though was watching games at the local beer garden for a true Germany football experience. There were a few games that we were all interested in while we were in Hannover, so we may have spent quite a few hours at Lister Turm Biergarten over a couple days... we never missed our home team play. Given the hot weather, the outdoor beer garden was perfect. The atmosphere was amazing, everyone was there to have a great time and watch some great football matches. 

Grand Prix weekend - Montréal

After getting into following F1 for awhile now, one of our once in a lifetime experience trips was to go see a Grand Prix weekend live. Spurring this on as well was our track experience at Abu Dhabi and a bike tour in Singapore where we ended up riding part of the track there. Heading to the Canadian Grand Prix in Montréal wasn't that difficult of a trip. We thought getting tickets to the actual race weekend was also going to be a bit more difficult than it ended up being, but we found a good set of tickets and went all in with tickets for the entire weekend. 

We flew to Montréal one day before the weekend festivities started. Our flight arrived a bit later in the evening and we noticed the taxi line up was ridiculous so we made our way to try and catch an Uber instead. This line we discovered was just as ridiculous and after waiting for an hour we learned that the system was so overloaded that despite being in line and having a pick up code, the system was no longer working and no Ubers were arriving. We slowly started seeing others who hadn't waited for any length of time start catching their Ubers which really started to annoy those who had waited in the queue. Eventually we figured out that the system was starting to slowly accept new bookings but those of us in the queue were a bit screwed because our booking code was not working. We ended up heading back to the taxi queue which by the time we decided to shift over no longer had anyone waiting, but we had just wasted just over an hour of time waiting for Uber. Lesson learned.

We arrived at the Delta Montréal and got all checked in without any further issues. You could see the F1 atmosphere all throughout the city. Hotels and restaurants were all decorated for the event. When we got into our room we noticed two F1 welcome packages as well which included. a bag, seat cushion, key chain and a couple other trinkets. It was a nice and well thought out gift, especially the seat cushions. We had brought our own which was a good decision because sitting on the metal seats for hours would have felt horrible. While the Delta is an older hotel that could use a refresh, we did have a lovely, rather large room with balcony. It was conveniently located near the metro station that took us to the metro station to access the track grounds, and was also within close walking distance to McGill University, shopping and lots of restaurants. 

Montréal has a great food scene and we explored a few different places outside of the food options at the track. A couple of our favourites were Dunn's Famous - first opened in 1927 - this restaurant is known for its smoked meats and poutine, including more varieties of poutine than I ever knew existed. We shared an order of the General Tao poutine - which came with flavourful chicken tenders and was absolutely amazing, and the Louisiana soup - a cream of potato; and Poulet Rouge - a quick service customizable grilled chicken bowl restaurant- a very flavourable, and healthy option. The track also had some really good foot options including pulled pork poutine!! 

While we did explore Montréal a bit on foot and took in a Canadiens playoff game at a local pub with one of Z's cousins, the main attraction of this trip was race weekend. We went all in and got the full weekend pass along with one of the concert evenings as well. The overall atmosphere was electric, and you could just feel the excitement throughout the city, not only at the track. 

Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve is located on an island just off old town Montréal and best accessible by metro. Friday was practice day and while it felt busy with crowds of spectators, the crowds were nothing compared to Sunday race day. We took advantage of it not being overly busy to walk around the grounds and check out the various food options, the fan zone and other areas of the grounds around the track. Our seats were located in the Lance Stroll grand stand by the hairpin turn which provided for lots of exciting viewing as the drivers came full speed into the hairpin forcing a major slow down only to accelerate back out again. We got to see quiet a few great overturns here. I did at time feel like I was watching a tennis match though with my head going left to right to left again as they came through the hairpin. During the warm up to practice some of the drivers would slow right down in front of our grandstand so that we could take a proper picture of them in their cars, which I thought was pretty cool. Lewis Hamilton was the best at doing that. It was quite the exhilarating experience seeing and hearing the cars so close and smelling the burning rubber tyres. It's a bit indescribable but certainly was a once in a lifetime experience. 

As we had the three day pass, we could have spent morning to night at the track, but we did choose which events we attended. We made sure to obviously watch the main F1 practice, qualifying, sprint race and main race. We also watched the F1 academy race (women's racing) and the F2 race. Both having quite impressive and talented drivers. We wanted to make the most of the entire experience so we also decided to attend the Bryan Adams concert on the Saturday night. Opening for Bryan Adams was another Canadian musician, Dean Brody. Both were great and we thoroughly enjoyed the concert experience. 

Sunday race day was full of excitement and anticipation. The weather was looking a bit iffy with the threat of rain, which thankfully never turned into full on rain, but there was some drizzy at the start of the race which kept the race interesting as the track was a little wet. Everywhere was packed full of people (weekend attendance was 360,000), it was difficult to navigate the grounds anywhere quickly and there were line ups everywhere, you just had to force your way through at times. Mercedes started off strong with the front row 1/2 and the battle between Russell and Antonelli from the start was thrilling. They were intensely battling for first for the longest time until an engine failure took Russell out of the race and basically handed Antonelli the win with Hamilton and Verstappen rounding out the top three. It was insane race to watch, absolutely thrilling! It was an amazing weekend to remember and well worth the trip! 

To travel is to live... until next time. Life is good!