Hamburg

The former fishing and pilot village to the west of Hamburg is located right on the Elbe and is a popular destination and residential area for wealthy citizens of Hamburg. One of Germany's most beautiful hiking trails runs along the banks of the Elbe to Blankenese. Picturesque lanes, winding stairs and houses standing close together: with its Mediterranean feel, the Blankenese Treppenviertel on the Elbe has something of a resort on the Riviera. Blankeneser Bahnhofstrasse is like a small city in itself with its church, weekly market, many well-stocked shops, restaurants and ice cream parlors

The Beatles laid the foundation stone of their career in the early 1960s in the Hamburg neighbourhood of St Pauli, the city’s famous red light district. Take a “Beatles Tour” and you will get the unique opportunity to follow the tracks of the “Fab Four” across St. Pauli.

Discover Hamburg on a guided bike tour! It is a fun and sporty way to get to know the very different districts of the city. Choose either city bikes, cruisers, kick bikes or mountain bikes and go individually or in a group — the whole year round. It's the best way to see the city quickly and go places a bus couldn't take you.

The Plaza is the central meeting place in the Elbphilharmonie and forms the link between the warehouse and the new structure. The viewing platform here is open to the public. Even getting to it is an experience: an 80-metre-long, slightly curved escalator transports visitors through the building. From the Plaza, 37 metres above the ground, a stunning panoramic view over the city and port opens up before the viewer. An outside walkway leads around the entire building.

The 160-hectare Alster lake sits right in the city centre, surrounded with cafes, parks and walking paths, plus an abundance of oak and chestnut trees for nature lovers. Perfect for renting a canoe, a pedal, rowing boats or a sailboat and staying active. There are sculptures both on land and in the lake. Most vast bodies of water are best enjoyed during the golden hour and aboard a boat. Grab a small group of friends and books a one-hour sail boat ride at sunset.

Over a century old, the Speicherstadt in the port is the world’s largest integrated complex of warehouses. Here, guests to Hamburg find an idyllic scenery of redbrick Gothic architecture from the Wilhelmine era with bizarre little gables and towers. Valuable goods are stored at controlled temperatures behind their massive walls: coffee, tea, cocoa, spices, tobacco — and the world’s largest stock of Oriental carpets. Since 2015 the Speicherstadt, the Chilehaus and the Kontorhausviertel belong to the UNESCO World Heritage Site. If you're short on time or want to give your feel some rest after exploring the city, take a one-hour evening boat tour. Speicherstadt looks especially magical at sunset.

Miniatur Wunderland is the world's largest model railway museum and Germany's most popular tourist attraction. Its display sections show authentic environment from different countries: from Sweden and Norway to the pyramids of Egypt and Las Vegas in U.S. The exhibit switches from 'day' to 'night' every 15 minutes. You can also take a guided tour that shows Wunderland behind-the-scenes to better appreciate how much technical wizardry and planning is involved in running this place.