Day 10 on The Elbe Biketrail – Geesthacht to Hamburg

After last nights heavy rain & thunderstorms this morning was shrouded in thick mist. Today was going to be a short biking day so I thought I would go easy on the breakfast 🙂 although it’s incredibly hard to resist the brown bread rolls covered in sunflower seeds.

I eventually left at half past ten, after doing a blog post and answering loads of emails. Just around the corner you pass the now defunct Krümmel Nuclear Power Plant capable of producing in it’s heyday 10,000 GWh per year, always fascinating to me that Nuclear Power  Plants seem to be built near borders!  To continue the energy theme a mile or so further on there is a hydro electric scheme generating an annual 10GWh since 1958. I loved the few solar panels tagged onto the hillside.

The route was along dedicated cycle tracks for most of the way through farmland with lots of greenhouses, in Funfhausen it started to rain so made time for a plum tart & coffee both delicious.

Hamburg has very little urban sprawl so you seem to go from farmland to city centre very quickly. I eventually found my way to Carens for a coffee & some of her daughters cale 🙂 then for a quick walk and ice cream around the lake.

You can run around a lake and they have a cunning electronic system by Alster so you can automatically time yourself.

In the evening I met up to stay with Sandra,  Em’s au pair from 19 years ago, her husband & two gorgeous girls. Pleased to say she has decent internet but unbelievably O2 is still on GPRS in this part of Central Hamburg.

Strava says I did nearly 31 miles the days photos are here.