Hamburg

Hamburg fascinates with its impressive architecture and the vivid atmosphere of its inner city. With your guide you will visit the bustling harbour with the Landungsbruecken (jetties), the impressive concert hall “Elbphilharmonie” and the two museums’ ships “Rickmer Rickmers” and “Cap San Diego” as well as the new city quarter Hafencity. You will then see the city centre with the famous Jungfernstieg promenade, the Town Hall, the St. Michael’s Church and the Alster. Finally, you can embark on a private Alster cruise. This cruise along the Alster canals reveals the mysterious side of Hamburg: Beautifully-kept villas with hidden parkland and luxurious penthouse apartments as well as other interesting sights along the riverbanks – so close you can almost reach out and touch them. Although so near to the city center, you will find yourself in the midst of the idyllic greenery that graces residential areas bordering the Alster.

A must-see when visiting Hamburg is the fish market: Fish, fruits, flowers, clothing and souvenirs, you can find almost anything at the Hamburg Fish Market, an institution since 1703. Every Sunday morning, early birds and night owls unite along the shores of the Elbe to barter over fresh fish, regain their spirits over a coffee or simply to enjoy the lively atmosphere. To attract customers, the market barkers outscream each other. This results in a loud and verbose crescendo that both locals and tourists enjoy on a weekly basis. 'Come over here, I'll throw in a salmon for you', is what shoppers hear as they stroll from stall to stall. Yet, what sounds like a bargain might appear too good to be true - this you will have to decide for yourself. Not every visitor is there to haul home baskets of fresh produce. Some come to feast on an early morning fish sandwich and some Hanseatic chit chat over beautiful views across the harbour, whilst others put on their dancing shoes in the Fischauktionshalle (fish auction hall). Inside the century-old building, the band keeps spirits up high with live rock and jazz music, attracting party-goers for one last dance after dawn. The bars and clubs of the Reeperbahn being only a few minutes away, the banks of the Elbe are a popular last stop after a rough Saturday night out on the town.

Hamburg's Speicherstadt, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the world's largest historic warehouse complex. On this tour, your guide will tell you all about the origins and significance of this impressive complex. The Speicherstadt was built between 1883 and 1927 in neo-Gothic brick architecture on a foundation of piles and is crossed by 6 waterways. These narrow and shallow canals, the so-called “fleet”, were not big enough for large cargo ships, therefore all goods were loaded to smaller boats, which brought the cargo to the warehouses, which were equipped with cranes to unload the boats. The warehouses in the Speicherstadt were primarily used to store coffee, rubber, palm oil, cocoa beans and other colonial goods and became the world's largest coffee warehouse. Complete this fascinating tour with a special coffe experience: You’ll start with an exclusive tour through the original storage house, showing you all aspects of the coffee culture - from the beginning 2000 years ago to our daily coffee consumption. The harbour city is the place where the biggest coffee traders in the world have their main quarter. Single origin und single estate coffees will be compared in a tasting. You will judge some of the best coffees in the world with a set of criteria that is used by quality graders and create your very own, personal coffee mixture.

The Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg's Speicherstadt warehouse district is a must-see for all train enthusiasts and visitors to Hamburg - young and old. It is one of the most popular and most visited attractions in Germany. According to Guinness World Records, the Miniatur Wunderland is the largest model railway layout in the world. Various regions of the world, from the Alps to Patagonia, are represented as models on a total of approx. 1700 m² of model areas, and construction is constantly ongoing. The 1:87 scale tracks have a total length of more than 16 kilometers, on which around 1200 digitally controlled trains with more than 12,000 wagons run. The layout was designed with around 5300 houses and bridges, more than 11,000 vehicles, 52 airplanes and around 290,000 figures. One of the special features is a simulated day/night change, controlled by an automatic lighting control system that switches almost 500,000 LED lights to suit the time of day. The Monaco section and the Formula 1 racetrack are brand new. The first Formula 1 race was inaugurated in April 2024 by Prince Albert II of Monaco himself.