Royal visit to the rainy Hanseatic city

The third day of their visit to Germany led the British King Charles III. and his wife Camilla to Hamburg yesterday. There they arrived at the Dammtor station on a normal ICE train, punctually at noon. Punctuality – that was very important to the king in the last two days. Despite his packed Berlin schedule, the royals have almost always managed to keep their appointments to the minute.

Hamburg’s Mayor Peter Tschentscher and his wife Eva-Maria welcomed the royal couple as well as the German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his wife Elke Büdenbender. The royal couple took the opportunity to shake hands with a few people cheering them on.

At the south exit of the Dammtor train station, the royals visited the “Kindertransport – the last goodbye” memorial. There Queen Consort Camilla, Eva-Maria Tschentscher and Elke Büdenbender laid down white roses. The sculptural group depicts the moment when two children say goodbye to a track, while a young woman and four other children remain behind.

The memorial commemorates a major rescue operation before the outbreak of World War II: from December 1938 to August 1939, more than ten thousand mostly Jewish children were brought to Great Britain by train and ship.

Charles and Camilla later went to the St. Nikolai Church, which was destroyed during British and American air raids on Hamburg in 1943. The royal couple laid wreaths of flowers at the memorial.

The next item on the agenda was a visit to Hamburg City Hall, where Charles and Camilla waved briefly from the balcony – hundreds of people from Hamburg had come to greet them. This was followed by an entry in the City of Hamburg’s Golden Book.

Harbor cruise and party

And of course there is no visit to the Hanseatic city without a boat trip in the port of Hamburg, which King Charles undertook with Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Meanwhile, Queen Camilla visited a primary school with Elke Büdenbender, where the students are taught bilingually.

The Royals’ three-day visit to Germany ended on Friday afternoon with a party at the British Embassy.

• Before that, the British monarch was in Berlin for two days: