I like Hamburg because it's so versatile: The "Michel" a.k.a. St. Michaelis Church, an example for 19th century wealth and art AND Hamburg's most favourite landmark,
the harbour, seen from "Landungsbruecken", the place where in former days the big overseas ships lay, letting the guests enter for a trip to America,
now a touristy place with many little shops and dozens of boats taking you on trips to the "Speicherstadt", a part of the harbour designed back in the 19th century for storage of all the goods coming in from all over the world,
the "Passagen", inner city indoors shopping malls, built quite recently or during the last 100 years,
Stadtpark and Jenisch-Park, beautiful parks with multiple possibilities, pubs and clubs for literally every taste,
the famous "Elbstrand", a stretch of sandy beach along Övelgönne and
"Elbchaussee", a street lined by wealthy people's villas and private parks,
museums showing many aspects of Hamburgian life, archaeology, art - you name it,
and many places I haven't seen yet.
To give you the chance to find the places I talk about on a map I want to send you to Stadtplan.de, a German city map service that provides you with good quality online city maps.
I want to tell you about places I have been to and came to love. This list can only be part of what there's to be seen in Hamburg, but, as I told you before, this page is meant to be my private view on Hamburg and what I think is worth seeing or interesting or important. If you believe you've found something worth being included in here please feel welcome to tell me about it. I'd appreciate it very much and try to add it to my informations as quickly as possible. Thank you very much for your help. Please write to TheAlb.
And now let's start the sight seeing trip through Hamburg.
When I have guests who never have been to Hamburg before I like showing them some of the famous landmarks of Hamburg first: Those are some buildings in the inner city, Landungsbruecken at the Elbe river, and Fish Market (Fischmarkt).
There's no loss at parking spaces in Hamburg, only be careful with parking where there you aren't supposed to park your car. Hamburg's household is a rather poor one so parking tickets are very easy to get and fees are from 30 to 50 DM (1 US$ is roughly 1,80 DM). Or you use public transport instead.
The inner city is perfect to start any sight seeing trip. You may start at
"Jungfernstieg" near city hall (Hamburger Rathaus) and enjoy the view at the Binnen- and Aussenalster, a lake which is part of the small Alster river on which you can take tours by motor boat or hire rowing boats.
Along the border of Binnenalster you'll find many expensive and famous
shops, and from Jungfernstieg which is the name of the street at the end of the Binnenalster you get into the largest, most important (and most expensive) shopping area of Hamburg. Every boutique and international shop can be found here, and the "Passagen" I've mentioned before. Have a go at "Hanseviertel" or "Levante-Haus" at "Mönckebergstraße", the most famous shopping street in Hamburg, or stroll through one of the smaller (and often finer) malls at the "Colonnaden" or through the mall "Galleria".
You've already got enough of shopping?
Go and see the city hall. It's directly accessible from Jungfernstieg from where you go to "Rathausplatz". You can't miss city hall: It's the richly decorated large building with copper coated roof tower along that square. It has been restored last year, inside and out so it's a real beauty again and worth paying the entry fee (last year it was DM 4 for the guided tour).
From Jungfernstieg you can take the subway to Rödingsmarkt (or simply walk) and visit St.Nikolai Church, once the most beautiful church in Hamburg, now a ruin because of the WWII bombings. The remaining parts (after all it's only the tower and part of the choir) are still impressive.
From there it's only a short walk to either Nicolai-Fleet (in which "Fleet" doesn't mean that there is a fleet of ships but a mere canal) along which you can see old and restored buildings - a great place to sit down and have either a cool beer or lunch or dinner or just a good time in one of the many restaurants or pubs - see the going out section for more information - or St. Michaelis Kirche (the tower on the right is a wooden model of this often photographed building).
It's a bit overdone for my taste - I'm more for the simple and classic beauty of the "Deutsche Dom" in Berlin or the "Basilica" in Trier - but it's a major attraction for the tourists.
But I invite you to climb the stairs to the top of the tower and enjoy the view from there. It's breathtaking. You can see over most of the city with the harbour, Elbe, inner city, Alster and quite a few of the suburbs.
On the first picture you can see the MS Cap San Diego, a train of subway line 3, the Elbe River, of course, and part of the harbour.
The second picture shows the "Gruner & Jahr" building, and to the right and front you can find many Spanish and Portuguese restaurants. The third picture shows downward Elbe River and part of Altona.
From St. Michaelis Kirche it's only a short walk to the so-called "Kammeramtsstuben", a tiny row of old buildings in a backyard. You reach it over a flight of steps towards the river. If you turn left on the bottom you can see the sign advertising the place. But be careful with your head: the houses have been built in a time when people were about 30 cm smaller!
Now, from the "Kammeramtsstuben" with their picturesque buildings, little shops and restaurant, you can go on with walking towards the harbour.
The decision is yours: To the left is "Speicherstadt" where until the end of September 98 you could see the highly renownened "Titanic" exhibition, an impressive exhibition with many bits and pieces from the famous ship. The exhibition itself resided in one of the old warehouses of the Speicherstadt and took quite a bit of its atmosphere from that fact. By the way, in the same block of buildings, just on the other side (you have to cross a canal, though) is the Spice Museum, entrance DM 4 (or it was at least when I went there last), which is full of home and foreign spices. You even get a small bag of pepper at the entrance. It's worth a visit.
Some way up I said: ... to your left ... If you turn right at that point you walk towards Landungsbruecken. On your way there you see the small, usually blue boats for harbour sight-seeing trips (I'd prefer those because they get into every little Fleet, not like the bigger ships you can get on from Landungsbruecken. They have to stop earlier), the sailing ship Rickmer Rickmers and the motor ship Cap San Diego (previous page).
If you are tired by now you can take the subway back to the city from "Landungsbruecken", otherwise there's the next set of sights: the Landungsbruecken themselves.
In former days the old transatlantic liners were fastened here - you still can feel the long gone vibrations in some places.
And then there's the old tunnel - a technical masterpiece of the late 19th century. If you think about a normal tunnel (drive in, drive through, drive out again) you're wrong.
There are elevators on both sides of the Elbe River - each can hold one car. You drive into one of the elevators, buy the ticket, and the journey goes downward. Then you pass under the Elbe River and enter the next elevator on the other side.
When you get out of the elevator again, you're on harbour ground.
At weekends the tunnel is closed for motor traffic - then people use the public elevators (free) or the stairs (if you want) to get down and walk through the tunnel. Believe me, it's an exciting experience and view.
And when you look back at the city from the other side you are awarded with the following view:
To view the picture in full size and with some explanations please click on the picture.
The decision is yours: To the left is "Speicherstadt" where until the end of September 98 you could see the highly renownened "Titanic" exhibition, an impressive exhibition with many bits and pieces from the famous ship. The exhibition itself resided in one of the old warehouses of the Speicherstadt and took quite a bit of its atmosphere from that fact.
By the way, in the same block of buildings, just on the other side (you have to cross a canal, though) is the Spice Museum, entrance DM 4 (or it was at least when I went there last), which is full of home and foreign spices. You even get a small bag of pepper at the entrance. It's worth a visit.
The inner city is perfect to start any sight seeing trip. You may start at
"Jungfernstieg" near city hall (Hamburger Rathaus) and enjoy the view at the Binnen- and Aussenalster, a lake which is part of the small Alster river on which you can take tours by motor boat or hire rowing boats.
