THE THOMSON FAMILY SCRAPBOOK

Compiled From Original Scrapbook Of

David & Jeanne Thomson

HAMBURG, GERMANY - Summer of 1997

Several years ago, 1995 I believe, Jeanne and I hosted two girl exchange students for two months in the summer. One girl was from Paris, France and the other was from Hamburg, Germany. Neither had met each other or us prior to their arrival in South Carolina, USA.

Sabina Meyer-Wagen, the girl from Hamburg, who preferred to use the English name, Sally, which she acquired in her English class in Hamburg, came back to stay with us one summer with her boy friend, Jörg.

Sally's parents, Hardy and Christa Meyer-Wagen, invited us to come to Hamburg to stay with them for several weeks and see Germany. Naturally, we accepted and so in the late June of 1997, Jeanne and I flew from Atlanta to Frankfort and then on the Hamburg. Hardy and Sally met us at the airport and this was the start of one of the beautiful vacations Jeanne and I had ever experienced.

For three weeks we saw the sights of Hamburg, traveled throughout central Germany, saw some of the former East Germany, and visited Copenhagen, Sweden. The map of Germany show our car travel route as well as the train travel route. All the travel in Germany was with Hardy's car. Sally and her boyfriend took us to Copenhagen by train. We took a tour bus around the city and then walked part of the route to get a better look at the sights. It was a long day trip as we started about 6AM and did not get back to Hardy's home until nearly midnight but it was worth it.

Our trip throughout central Germany include the cities of Wurzburg, Rothenburg, and Heidelberg. Hardy was kind enough to let us take a two hour cruise on the Rhine river to see the many castle along the banks.

Sally and Jörg, her boyfriend, took us to the North Sea, northwest of Hamburg, to visit with her Jörg's parents who vacating there in their vacation trailer. Each trailer site was very nicely fixed up and somewhat private. We did get a change to venture out to the North Sea, which was cold and windy as it almost always is.

Hamburg is a great ocean port on the Elbe River which connects to the North Sea. The port serves many nations and the harbor is absolutely huge and one of the many great tourist attractions in the city.

Please use the menu above to see some of the sights we saw in Germany and we hope that you enjoy this photographs as much as we did taking them.

I would be remiss if I didn't include a photograph (stock photo) of the world famous Castle at Neushwanstein. This is the castle the Walt Disney used to model his castle in Disneyland, Disneyworld and all the other of this theme parks. This is a commercial photograph as Jeanne and I, unfortunately, never got to Neushwanstein.