5 Days in Hamburg

Hamburg's wealth was made in offices before it was made in warehouses, and the best of them stand in the Kontorhausviertel, the Kontor ("counting house") quarter. The Chilehaus, finished in 1924 for the shipowner Henry B. Sloman, who made his money trading saltpeter from Chile, is the star. Fritz Höger built it from 4.8 million dark bricks and shaped the corner like the prow of a ship about to sail down the street.

Look at the details instead of the whole: sculpted figures and brick stairwells, built in the years when inflation made a mark worth less every week. It's one of the best-known examples of brick expressionism, and together with the Speicherstadt it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015.

Ten minutes away, the Speicherstadt (the "warehouse city") runs for about 1.5 km along a maze of canals called Fleete. It was built from 1883 as a free port zone, where goods could be stored without paying customs, and more than 20,000 people were moved out of the old Kehrwieder and Wandrahm quarters to make room. The red-brick neo-Gothic warehouses stand on oak piles driven into the mud, with a loading door on the street side and another on the water.

About half of it was destroyed in 1943 and rebuilt by 1967, and some warehouses still do their old job: carpets, coffee, tea and spices still pass through. Walk Dienerreihe past the Wasserschloss, the little "water castle" at the end of a canal, then out to Kehrwiederspitze for the view of the Elbphilharmonie. It's lit up after dark, which makes a second visit worthwhile.

Yes, it's a model railway, and yes, it's worth the ticket. Miniatur Wunderland fills a Speicherstadt warehouse with the world's largest model railway at a scale of 1:87, with close to 300,000 tiny figures on about 1,700 square meters. The regions include a fictional German town (Knuffingen), a miniature Hamburg complete with an Elbphilharmonie, Switzerland, the USA, Italy and an airport where planes really taxi and take off.

The trick is the detail. Every so often the lights dim to night, and the little world gets headlights and fireworks. Adults who came for the kids lose an hour at the airport.

Walk five minutes from the Speicherstadt and the Elbphilharmonie, "Elphi" to everybody, rises like a glass wave out of a brick warehouse. The base is Kaispeicher A, a warehouse from the 1960s. The concert hall on top opened in January 2017, years late and at a cost of about 866 million euros, against the 77 million the city first expected to pay.

The Plaza, an 8th-floor viewing platform 37 meters up, has a walkway that goes all the way around the building, with views over the harbor, the HafenCity and the city. To get there you ride a curved escalator, 82 meters long, through the old warehouse. Go in the last hour before sunset, when the light turns the Speicherstadt copper.

From the Elphi it's a waterfront walk of about half an hour west to the Landungsbrücken, the landing stages that have been the city's front door since the first pier went in in 1839. The current floating pontoons were built from 1907 to 1909. Two museum ships are moored nearby: the three-masted Rickmer Rickmers, built in 1896, and the Cap San Diego, a freighter from 1961 and the last of the White Swans of the South Atlantic.

There are two ways onto the water. Small Barkassen (harbor barges) and bigger boats run guided harbor tours from the piers, which is the way to go if you want the stories. The cheaper way is an ordinary ferry on HVV tickets: line 62 runs from the Landungsbrücken past the docks and Övelgönne to Finkenwerder, and it's the same route the day-three ferry takes in daylight.

The classic Hamburg dinner is a Fischbrötchen, a bread roll with fish, eaten standing up with a view of ships. Brücke 10, on the pontoon at the western end of the Landungsbrücken, has been the favorite for years: herring in different guises, Matjes (young salted herring) with onions, smoked salmon or shrimp, and a pontoon from which to watch the Pötte (the big ships) go by.

If you can't decide, order the shrimp.

The Kunsthalle, three connected buildings between the Hauptbahnhof and the Alster, is one of Germany's big art museums, with art from the Middle Ages to today under one roof. The red-brick main building dates from 1869, the domed extension from 1921 and the contemporary gallery from 1997.

Pick a few things and skip the rest. The medieval altarpieces by Master Bertram and Master Francke are Hamburg's own early art. The German Romantics, with Caspar David Friedrich among them, are the pride of the collection, and the modern rooms have Munch, Beckmann and Picasso.

Walk ten minutes south to the neo-Renaissance Rathaus, built between 1886 and 1897 after the old one was blown up in 1842 to stop the fire. The senate worked from a provisional seat for 55 years. It cost 11 million gold marks, has 647 rooms and a 112-meter tower, and it stands on more than 4,000 oak piles. The balcony bears a Latin motto asking later generations to keep the liberty their ancestors won, and the whole building is a statement that Hamburg answers to nobody but itself.

It's a working seat of government for both the senate and the parliament, so it isn't a museum. The ground-floor hall with painted columns is the place to look in.

Two minutes from the Rathaus, the Jungfernstieg is the promenade on the Binnenalster, the smaller of the two Alster lakes. The Alster is a small river that Hamburg dammed in the Middle Ages, which is why the city has a lake in the middle of it. The arcades beside the Rathaus, the Alsterarkaden, were designed by Alexis de Chateauneuf after the 1842 fire in an Italian style that guides like to compare to Venice, and the fountain in the lake, when it's running, is visible from the whole promenade.

The easiest way to take it all in is a round trip on an Alster boat, about 50 minutes to an hour out over the Binnenalster and onto the bigger Außenalster, past villas, rowing clubs and yacht harbors. In summer the Alster is full of sailboats and canoes.

A 15-minute walk south, a lone Gothic Revival spire rises beside the traffic. It's all that is left of St. Nikolai, a church that burned in 1842. Its replacement tower, finished in 1874, was for two years the tallest building in the world. Then came Operation Gomorrah, the Allied bombing of 24 July to 3 August 1943, with a firestorm on the night of 27-28 July. It killed an estimated 34,000 to 37,000 people and destroyed or damaged well over half of the city's housing.

The church was never rebuilt. The cellar now holds an exhibition on the bombing, and a panoramic lift takes you up the 147-meter tower to a platform at 76 meters. Afterwards walk two minutes to Deichstraße, the quiet street where the fire of 1842 began and the last row of old merchant houses. See both, so you know what the rebuilt streets were rebuilt from.

Walk west to St. Michaelis, "the Michel", with its green copper tower, the symbol of Hamburg for ships coming up the Elbe. The church is the third on the site: the first was destroyed by lightning in 1750, the second was consecrated in 1762, and in 1906 a fire started by soldering work in the tower wrecked it. It was rebuilt in its old form by 1912, this time with a fireproof frame.

The interior is bright and baroque, and entry to the church is free. The tower is worth the money: from the platform you look down on the harbor, the Elbphilharmonie and the Alster.

Dinner is across the road from the Michel, at the Old Commercial Room on Englische Planke, which has been feeding Hamburg since 1795. Order the Labskaus, the old sailors' dish that looks like a mistake and tastes like one of the best things in the north: corned beef, potatoes and onion mashed together and pink with beet, served with a fried egg, a pickled gherkin and herring on the side.

The Old Elbe Tunnel, at the western end of the Landungsbrücken, is one of the city's best-loved pieces of engineering. It opened in 1911, 426 meters long and 24 meters below the surface, to carry harbor workers to the shipyards on the south bank. Glass passenger lifts and 132 steps take you down to it. Inside, two tiled tubes run under the Elbe.

After years of repair work, both tubes were open again in May 2026. Walk the length and come up on the other side, in Steinwerder, to see the skyline of the old town, the Michel and the Elbphilharmonie across the river, the classic Hamburg view. Then go back the same way.

Back on the north bank, take ferry 62 from the Landungsbrücken. It runs along the working harbor past container terminals, shipyards and dry docks, and your stop is Neumühlen/Övelgönne. The museum harbor here is the oldest in Germany, a private club that keeps historic Elbe workboats in working order, and a path along the sandy beach leads west past captains' houses with gardens facing the river.

The Elbstrand is the city beach. Container giants glide by so close that you feel the wake, and locals in jackets sit on the sand with a beer. Walk on to the Altes Lotsenhaus, the old pilots' house, and have a Fischbrötchen at the Strandperle with your feet in the sand.

A bus takes you from Övelgönne up to Altona (the line number has changed between 112 and 113, so let the HVV app pick), and a few minutes' walk from there is Ottensen, a former industrial quarter that now has cafés, small shops and street markets. It's where to look for the pastry that's Hamburg's own: the Franzbrötchen, a flat roll of buttery dough folded with cinnamon and sugar until it looks like a squashed croissant.

Pick any bakery in the lanes around Ottenser Hauptstraße that bakes its own, and ask for one that is still warm. A Franzbrötchen with a milky coffee is the Hamburg afternoon. If you want a name, the Kleine Konditorei in Eimsbüttel is often mentioned, but it's a detour, so ask at the counter what was baked that day instead.

Altona was not part of Hamburg for most of its history. Its name is popularly explained as all to nah, "all too near" the Hamburg border. It was ruled by Danish kings from 1640 to 1864, who gave it city rights in 1664 and a more tolerant regime than the Hamburg senate, so Mennonites, Catholics and Jews settled here. It became part of Hamburg only in 1938.

The Palmaille, laid out in 1638 as a pall-mall lawn, is a long, broad tree-lined street, still lined with classicist townhouses from the Danish period (about two thirds of it was destroyed in the war, and the rebuilding followed the old facades). Just below it, the Altonaer Balkon is a terrace on the slope above the river, with a view of the Elbe, the cranes and the Köhlbrand bridge.

Take the S1 from Altona, around 20 minutes west, to Blankenese, a fishing village that was an independent town in Holstein until 1927 and is now one of Hamburg's wealthiest neighborhoods. Its name is usually traced to Low German blank (bare, shining) and Nes (headland), and the hillside above the river is a maze of tiny car-free lanes and thousands of steps, so every house seems to have its own stairs.

Wander the Treppenviertel (stair quarter) and work your way up to a viewpoint above the river, with ships crossing, the Airbus plant on the far bank and a lighthouse below. This is the best sunset in Hamburg that isn't on a building.

Finish down by the water. The Strandweg, the path along the beach, has a few small places that serve fish rolls and something warm, and the one to head for is the Kajüte SB 12, right on the sand at Strandweg 79, a walk of about 1.2 km west of the stairs. Its website says it opens daily from 11:30, with Monday and Tuesday as rest days, so a Friday works (on a Monday or Tuesday, eat in Altona instead). Outside the summer months beach places may shorten their hours and the outdoor tables thin out, so check before you walk over.

Take the bus back up to the station when you've had enough. The S1 runs back to the center.

Walk from the station across the bridge to the Holstentor, the two round towers with a gabled hall in between that are the symbol of Lübeck. The gate was finished in 1478, and the soft ground under it has given it a slight lean. Over the arch, on the city side, it says Concordia domi foris pax, "harmony within, peace without".

The museum inside covers the city's trading history. Even if you skip it, take a look at the old salt warehouses along the Trave beside the gate. Lübeck got rich on salt from Lüneburg, which preserved the herring the Baltic fishermen brought in.

The market square is the center of a town that kept its own laws for centuries. The Rathaus is among the oldest town halls in Germany, and beside it stands St. Marien, built between 1265 and 1351 as the model for brick Gothic churches across the Baltic, with the tallest brick vault in the world. The old town was hit by an RAF raid on the night of 28-29 March 1942 that caused a firestorm and destroyed nearly 1,500 buildings, so much of what you see has been rebuilt.

Inside St. Marien, look at the high vaults first. Then walk up Breite Straße to Niederegger, which has made marzipan since 1806. Its café is open every day, the shop sells loaves, chocolate-covered bars and hazelnut cakes, and a slice of marzipan cake with a coffee is enough. The house also runs a marzipan museum.

Lübeck is where the Hanseatic League started, and the Hansemuseum on the Untertrave is the best place to understand it. The exhibition follows the trading network of north German and Baltic cities that ran trade across northern Europe for centuries, with Lübeck as its center and Hamburg as a partner. Your ticket also covers the Castle Friary next door, a medieval Dominican monastery.

It's the museum to see if you've ever wondered why Hamburg still calls itself a Hanseatic city, and what that means.

End the day among the Gänge und Höfe, the narrow passages and courtyards behind the street houses, where merchants once built small cottages for their workers or for the poor. The densest are around Engelsgrube, Engelswisch and Glockengießerstraße, and you reach each through a gap in the front of a house. Some are still homes, so walk quietly.

For dinner, go to the Schiffergesellschaft on Breite Straße, the guildhouse of the Lübeck sailors, founded in 1401 and in this house since 1535. The restaurant has ship models hanging from the ceiling and long wooden tables and benches. Book ahead, and check the last train back to Hamburg before you order dessert.

Trade has been allowed in Altona on Sunday mornings since 1703, before church, so the fishermen could sell their catch fresh. The market still happens every Sunday along the Elbe, in front of the brick and steel Fischauktionshalle from 1896. Vendors shout their prices with a showman's patter, and the sellers don't stop at fish: fruit, plants and souvenirs are on sale too.

The hall itself is the other half of the show. Inside there's breakfast and a live band playing everything from jazz to country, and many in the crowd have come straight from a night on the Reeperbahn. Have a Fischbrötchen for breakfast and stay until the band starts.

Climb the hill behind the fish market to Park Fiction, a green terrace above the Elbe with palm trees and a view of the cranes. It exists because neighbors in St. Pauli and Altona demanded a public park in 1994 instead of the offices and apartments the city had planned, and planned it themselves together with artists. The park was finished in 2005.

It's a good place to take your coffee from the market and look at the harbor from above.

By day the Reeperbahn is a wide, slightly grubby avenue, 930 meters long, with theaters and sex shops. The name comes from the Reepschläger, the rope-makers who needed a long, straight track outside the city walls, and it's known as die sündige Meile, the sinful mile. Locals call the whole area the Kiez.

The Beatles' early years were here. In 1960 they played the Indra and the Kaiserkeller, and in 1962 three residencies at the Star-Club on Große Freiheit, and the Beatles-Platz at the crossing of the Reeperbahn and Große Freiheit remembers them with five steel figures on a black plaza shaped like a vinyl record. Look at the Davidwache, the police station that has become a postcard, and the Hans-Albers-Platz. Herbertstraße is the walled street where women work behind windows, and signs at both ends bar women and men under 18. Keep walking and don't take photos.

A ten-minute walk from the Reeperbahn is the Millerntor-Stadion, home of FC St. Pauli, the club with the skull-and-crossbones flag. Founded in 1910, it's known as much for its left-wing, anti-racist fan culture as for football.

The other Hamburg club is Hamburger SV, from 1887, at the Volksparkstadion in Bahrenfeld, and the two don't like each other. For 2026-27 St. Pauli are in the second division and HSV in the Bundesliga, so there's no league derby this season. Home matches are hard to get into, but the area around the stadium is worth a look on any day.

Cross the Heiligengeistfeld and you reach Planten un Blomen, Low German for "plants and flowers", 47 hectares of gardens on the old city walls. It's free and open all year, with a rose garden and a Japanese garden with a teahouse and a lake, and in October the autumn colors do the work. The tropical greenhouses have been closed for years for repairs, so don't plan around them.

One S-Bahn stop from Dammtor station is the Sternschanze, the quarter that has replaced St. Pauli as the place locals go out. The Rote Flora on Schulterblatt is what is left of a 19th-century theater, occupied since November 1989 and covered in graffiti. It's a political center and not a sight, so look from the street. Cafés and bars fill the side streets around it.

For a Hamburg beer with dinner, go to Altes Mädchen in the Schanzenhöfe, the brewpub of Ratsherrn. The kitchen is open on Sundays from 12:00 to 20:30, so don't leave dinner late. For a snack before the night out, there's the Currywurst from a stand.

Back to St. Pauli for the last night. This is the mile of live music clubs, small bars, theater and big stage shows, and the Große Freiheit, where the Beatles played, is the best street to start. Hamburg's own drink is the Mexikaner, a shot of tomato juice, a clear spirit, chili and Worcestershire sauce, first served in 1987 in a Kiez bar. Order one and see what you think.

Sunday is usually quieter than Friday or Saturday, but there's still music, and a late fish roll near Hans-Albers-Platz. Check prices before you order, and walk on from anyone who steers you into a bar.