Four days in Hamburg: red brick, grey water and money that does not shout
The city hall and the merchants' quarter on the first afternoon, the warehouse district and the concert hall, the Michel and the tunnel under the Elbe, and the Kunsthalle before the train.
- Length
- 4 days, 3 nights
- Where you stay
- Hamburg
- Places
- 10 across 4 days
Hamburg has never really been part of anybody else's country. It ran its own affairs as a free city for centuries, kept its own fleet and its own laws, and still calls itself the Free and Hanseatic City on official letterheads. That history shows in the way the place carries itself: understated, cold-weather, unimpressed, with the largest port in Germany moving well over a hundred million tonnes a year behind a facade of quiet nineteenth century brick.
It is also a city of water. The Elbe on one side, two lakes made by damming a river in the middle of it, canals through the warehouse district, and a fleet of public ferries that count as buses. Any day here works better if you get on the water at some point in it.
Three nights is enough to see the harbour, the old merchant quarters and St Pauli properly, with room for one indoor day when the rain comes in sideways, which it will.
Highlights
- Seven storeys of warehouse on oak piles, floodlit at night and free to walk through
- The glass wave on top of a 1960s warehouse, with a free public terrace under it
- Walking under the Elbe in a tiled tunnel of 1911, with ships going over your head
- A bombed church left as a ruin, with a lift up the spire that survived
- A public ferry down the harbour for the price of a bus ticket
Where to stay
Hamburg, three nights
The shape is simple once you see it. The old town sits between the Alster lakes and the Elbe, the warehouse district and the new HafenCity are on the river side of it, and St Pauli and the nightlife are a couple of kilometres west along the water. Everything below is inside that strip.
Stay in Neustadt or the old town for walking distance, in St Georg behind the station for cheaper rooms and a lively street of restaurants, or in St Pauli if the evenings are the point. The Reeperbahn end is loud until very late at weekends, which is either the reason to book there or the reason not to.
Day by day
Day 1 in Hamburg
The city hall, the Kontorhaus quarter and a ruined church
Start in the square in front of the city hall, which was finished in 1897 in the confident manner of a city that had just rebuilt itself twice. It has 647 rooms, a 112 metre tower, and a foundation of thousands of timber piles driven into the marsh. The guided tour is short, cheap and the only way inside.
Walk east into the Kontorhaus quarter, five minutes away, where the shipping companies built their offices in dark brick in the 1920s. The Chilehaus is the one to see: ten storeys of brickwork narrowing to a point like the bow of a ship, with the courtyards open to walk through. This quarter and the warehouse district across the canal were made a World Heritage site together in 2015.
Finish at St Nikolai. Four of Hamburg's five main churches were rebuilt after the war. This one was left exactly as the bombing left it: the nave is an open shell, the spire still stands, and a glass lift runs up it to a platform with the whole city below. The crypt underneath covers the July 1943 firestorm that destroyed most of eastern Hamburg in a week.
- 15:00
Rathaus
VisitNeo-Renaissance sandstone of 1897 with a 112 metre tower, still the seat of the city government. Half-hourly guided tours in German, less often in English, and cheap.
- 16:45
Chilehaus
ArchitectureThe best of the 1920s brick office buildings, shaped like a ship's prow where two streets meet. Free: walk through the courtyards and look up at the point.
- 17:45
Hauptkirche St. Nikolai
ReligiousA church left as its own ruin after 1943, with a lift up the surviving spire and a documentation crypt below. Small charge for the tower, and the best view of the old town from it.
- 19:30
Dinner in the old town
EatDeichstrasse, the last row of old merchant houses on the Nikolaifleet, is two minutes away and has the traditional restaurants. The Portuguese quarter towards the harbour is better value and busier.
With more time: The two lakes are a ten minute walk north. The inner one is ringed with department stores and the outer one with parkland and sailing boats, and the path around the far one is seven kilometres of joggers, which is the most Hamburg sight in the city.
Day 2 in Hamburg
The Speicherstadt, the model railway and the glass wave
The Speicherstadt is the largest warehouse district in the world and it stands on oak piles driven into the mud, seven storeys of red brick with iron shutters, built from the 1880s to store coffee, tea, spices and carpets in a free port. Start on foot along the canals in the morning while the light is low and before the coach parties arrive.
Inside one of the blocks is Miniatur Wunderland, which sounds like a diversion for children and is not. It is the largest model railway on earth, obsessive to the point of absurdity, with a working airport where planes take off, a day-and-night cycle every fifteen minutes, and details the builders have hidden for people who look properly. Book a slot two weeks ahead. Two or three hours go missing in there.
Then walk into HafenCity for the Elbphilharmonie. A glass hall with a wave-shaped roof was set on top of a 1960s brick warehouse and opened in 2017 after a decade of delays and a famous overspend, and it works. The public terrace between the old building and the new one is free, and the long curved escalator up to it is worth the trip on its own.
- 09:30
Speicherstadt
VisitA district of brick warehouses on timber piles, cut through by canals, built from the 1880s and a World Heritage site since 2015. Free to walk, best in the early morning or floodlit at night.
- 11:00
The Miniatur Wunderland
VisitThe biggest model railway in the world, in a warehouse in the Speicherstadt: Hamburg, the Alps, Scandinavia and a working miniature airport. Book at least a fortnight ahead.
- 14:00
Lunch in HafenCity
EatThe new quarter east of the concert hall has the cafes and the water views. The kiosks by the canal bridges do a fish roll for a fraction of the price.
- 15:30
Elbphilharmonie
CultureThe concert hall on top of a warehouse. The Plaza terrace at 37 metres is free with a ticket from the machine at the entrance, and the escalator up is a slow curved tunnel with the harbour at the end of it.
With more time: The maritime museum stands in the oldest warehouse in the district and holds nine floors of ship models, charts and naval history, which is a great deal of ship for one afternoon but exactly right on a wet day.
Day 3 in Hamburg
The Michel, under the river, and St Pauli
The Michel is the city's landmark and the only baroque one of the five main churches. The present building went up in 1786 after lightning destroyed its predecessor, the tower is 132 metres, and there is a lift for anyone not attempting the 450 steps. From the platform the whole port lies out in front of you: cranes, container stacks, the river bending away west.
Walk down to the piers and take the old Elbe tunnel. It opened in 1911 to get dock workers to the shipyards, drops 24 metres in a lift, and runs 427 metres under the river in two tiled tubes decorated with ceramic fish, crabs and old boots. It is free on foot, and the point of it is the far side: from the southern bank you get the classic view back across the water at the whole city.
Give the afternoon to the water and the evening to St Pauli. The Reeperbahn is a rope-walk turned entertainment street turned red-light district, is famous for the clubs the Beatles played nightly in 1960 and 1961, and now runs from theatres and music venues at one end to sex shops at the other. It is safe, loud and less seedy than its reputation, and Sunday to Thursday it is a quarter as busy.
- 09:30
Hauptkirche St. Michaelis
ReligiousBaroque, white and gold inside, rebuilt in 1786 after a lightning strike. Free to enter; pay for the tower, and take the lift rather than the 450 steps unless you want them.
- 11:30
Alter Elbtunnel
OtherA tiled tunnel of 1911, 24 metres down and 427 across, with ceramic sea creatures on the walls. Free for walkers, and the reason to cross is the view of the skyline from the southern bank.
- 13:30
Ferry 62 and a fish roll
TravelFrom the piers, the public ferry runs west past the container terminals to Ovelgonne, where there is a beach, a row of pilots' houses and somewhere to eat. Covered by an ordinary day ticket.
- 20:00
Reeperbahn
LandmarkThe sinful mile: theatres, music clubs, bars and the red-light trade on one street. Start at the eastern end around eight, and expect it to be a different place after midnight.
With more time: Two streets north of the Reeperbahn, the Schanzenviertel is where people who live here drink: former squats, cheap Portuguese and Turkish food, and no stag parties. Ten minutes on foot or one stop on the S-Bahn.
Day 4 in Hamburg
Caspar David Friedrich, and the train
The Kunsthalle is next door to the Hauptbahnhof, which makes it the right last morning: leave the bags in the station lockers and walk five minutes. It is two buildings joined under a courtyard, the old one for painting up to the nineteenth century and the white cube for modern and contemporary work.
The thing to see is upstairs in the old building. Caspar David Friedrich's Wanderer above the Sea of Fog hangs here, the man on the rock with his back to you that has been printed on ten million book covers, and it is smaller and stranger in person than the reproductions suggest. Runge, Menzel and a strong nineteenth century German collection surround it.
Then the station. Trains south and east leave from here, and the S1 to the airport takes about twenty five minutes from the same platforms.
- 09:00
Coffee in St Georg
EatLange Reihe, behind the station, is a street of cafes and the best breakfast within walking distance of a departure platform.
- 10:00
Kunsthalle
CultureHamburg's art museum, one minute from the main station: German romantics and nineteenth century painting in the old wing, modern work in the white one. Two hours is enough.
With more time: If it is a Sunday, do the fish market instead and sleep on the train: it runs from five in the morning until half past nine, and the auctioneers in the market hall are worth the lost sleep on their own.
Before you go
Getting in
The airport is eight kilometres north of the centre and the S1 runs to the Hauptbahnhof in about twenty five minutes. The Hauptbahnhof itself is central, busy to the point of chaos, and within walking distance of the Kunsthalle, the lakes and the old town.
By train, Berlin is about two hours, Copenhagen five, Cologne four and Munich around six. Hamburg is also the natural stop between Germany and Scandinavia, and the sleeper to Stockholm leaves from here.
Getting around
U-Bahn, S-Bahn, buses and the harbour ferries are one network on one ticket, which is the single best thing to know here. Ferry 62 from the piers down to Ovelgonne is a full harbour cruise for the price of a day pass, and it is a scheduled commuter service, so nobody will sell you a photograph on it.
The centre is walkable and the distances look shorter than they are because of the water: the two sides of a canal can be a fifteen minute detour apart. Get the day pass, and note that it costs less if you start after nine in the morning.
The weather, honestly
It rains. Locals call bad weather Schietwetter and go out in it anyway, and the city looks better wet: the brick darkens and the whole place stops being grey and starts being red. Bring a proper jacket rather than an umbrella, because the wind off the Elbe destroys umbrellas.
May to September is mild and long-evening. Winter is dark and windy but the Christmas market on the Rathausmarkt is one of the better ones in Germany, and the museums are empty.
Booking ahead
Two things sell out. Miniatur Wunderland wants booking a fortnight ahead in season, and turning up without a slot can mean a long wait or no entry. Concerts at the Elbphilharmonie go on sale months in advance and the good ones vanish, though the free public terrace needs only a ticket picked up on the day at the door.
The city hall runs guided tours through the day and sells tickets on the spot; the English ones are less frequent, so check the board when you arrive rather than at the last minute.
Fish, and where the locals eat
Fischbrotchen is the local street food: soused herring, or shrimp, or fried fish in a bread roll with onions and remoulade, eaten standing at a kiosk. Labskaus is the sailors' dish and looks alarming, being corned beef, potato and beetroot mashed together under a fried egg, with a rollmop on the side. It tastes far better than it photographs.
The Sunday fish market at St Pauli opens at five in the morning in summer and seven in winter, and shuts at half past nine. Half the crowd has been up all night and half has come for the auctioneers, who sell fruit and plants by shouting. It is the one early start worth setting an alarm for.
The thing Hamburg does better than anywhere else in Germany is the hour before dinner: a fish roll at a kiosk, a ferry across the harbour, brick going dark red in the last of the light. None of that needs booking and none of it costs anything.
Keep one afternoon unplanned for the weather. If it turns, the museums are excellent; if it clears, get on a boat.
Make it your trip
Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.
Common questions
- Is Hamburg worth four days?
- Yes, and it rewards the fourth more than most German cities because so much of it is outdoors and weather-dependent. Three days works if you cut the art museum. Two is enough only for the harbour and the warehouse district.
- How do I get out onto the water cheaply?
- Take the public ferries. Lines 62, 72 and 75 are part of the transport network, run to a timetable, and cost the same as a bus. The commercial harbour tours are longer and add a commentary, which is worth it once if you want to know what the cranes are doing.
- Is St Pauli safe at night?
- Yes, with the caution any nightlife district deserves. It is busy, well lit and heavily policed at weekends. Herbertstrasse, the gated street of window brothels, is closed to women and to under-eighteens and is signposted as such.
- Can I visit the port itself?
- Not the container terminals, which are working industrial sites. You see them properly from the water on a ferry, from the viewing point on the southern bank at Steinwerder, or from the tower of the Michel. The old sailing ships at the piers are museums you can board.
- What about the Beatles?
- They played here for two years before anybody had heard of them, mostly on Grosse Freiheit off the Reeperbahn. There is a small square with steel silhouettes of the band at the corner, a couple of the original venues still trade under their old names, and walking tours cover the rest.
- Is Hamburg expensive?
- Comparable to Berlin for food and cheaper than Munich for a bed outside trade fair weeks. The expensive part is anything with a harbour view. Ferries, churches, the warehouse district and the concert hall terrace are free or nearly so.
- Can I copy this itinerary and change it?
- Yes. Copy it into your own trip and move things around, especially the indoor days, which are the ones you will want to swap when you see the forecast.