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For the last few weeks before I returned to the US, I worked in Copenhagen (København). I flew there every Monday morning, and home to München every Friday afternoon.

A bicycle tour from København to München

Dave Hood
2004-02-19 20:21:47

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but it isn’t as photogenic.

Ok, enough of all this. Time to be moving on. But the map shows nothing but Autobahnen crossing the Elbe. Foof! Do I have to detour off to the east just to get across the stupid water?

While I was studying the map, a bicycle messenger stopped, asked if he could help. After a few seconds of my Deutsch, he hauled out his Englisch, which was hardly any better. He advised me to go to St Pauli, where I could take a ferry.

So I did. Go to St Pauli, that is. Didn’t see the ferry terminal right off, so I stopped at the tourist information office, where I found that there’s a tunnel right next door, and it’s open to bicycles.

Not an Autobahn tunnel. This one was built a hundred years ago. It’s a vast vertical cylinder, straight down into the ground. Several openwork elevators side by side, one of them for pedestrians and cyclists. Down, down, down…

At the bottom, two white-tile tubes crossing under the water. I’m reminded of New York, the Hudson river, in miniature. One narrow auto lane in each tube; on either side of each auto lane, a sidewalk for the muscle-powered traffic. Not heavily used: one car came through while I was there, and one motorcycle. Another lift at the other end – rode up with the car, the motorcycle and a pedestrian. No charge for me, nor I think for the motor vehicles either. Seems to be just a working historical monument. Great!

The south side is industrial, railroad sidings and main-lines, warehouses, piers, a customs zone, and trucks coming and going constantly – this is a workday, after all. And no road going south. I could see where I wanted to go: apartments, shops, grass, trees: and between us was: here, chainlink fence, there, railroad tracks, there, Autobahn, there, water. Argh!

I’ve always read in adventure books about staying away from the Hamburg docks. Today ...