HAMBURG


Free spirit Hamburg’s official name is the ‘Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg’ — reflecting its membership of the Hanseatic League: a network of ports across the Baltic that existed from the 12th to the 17th centuries. The league hasn’t been around for about 400 years — but the name has stuck all the same


Clockwise from left: The futuristic exterior of Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie concert hall; a cafe by the pier at Outer Alster lake; the Speicherstadt UNESCO-listed warehouse district; Miniatur Wunderland, a star Hamburg attraction; the rich interior of Kunsthalle art gallery Previous pages: Outer Alster bridge


SEE & DO MINIATUR WUNDERLAND: Hamburg is a city built on a vast scale, but its most popular tourist attraction is, by contrast, built on a very small one. Miniatur Wunderland is the world’s largest model railway — inside you can find tiny renderings of everything from Rome to the Rio Carnival. Naturally, a mini Hamburg is given pride of place at the centre. miniatur-wunderland.com KUNSTHALLE: The city’s heavyweight art gallery is set over a series of strikingly different buildings — from a grand temple-like structure to a space-age cube. The permanent collection covers everything from the Renaissance to the postmodern, but many flock here to see one specific piece: the collection’s famous work titled Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, by German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich. hamburger-kunsthalle.de


158 NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM/TRAVEL


CHILEHAUS: Hamburg is renowned for its bold architecture, the greatest example of which is the Chilehaus — a 1920s expressionist office block commissioned by a shipping magnate who amassed a fortune in Chile, hence the name. Admiring crowds come to stand inside its courtyard, to look at the carvings that bedeck the facade and to gaze up at its eastern end, which looks like a ship’s prow. chilehaus.de BUNKER ST PAULI : One of the most interesting developments in Hamburg is this Second World War-era anti-aircraft tower, a giant concrete eyesore rising tall over the west of the city. It’s now getting an architectural revamp — slated to open this summer — as a hotel, gig venue, memorial and public space. Curious visitors will be able to make for the viewing deck where gun batteries once stood, and enjoy a beer or coffee while gazing out at the Hamburg skyline. bunker-stpauli.de


ELBPHILHARMONIE: This staggering concert hall opened in 2017 having controversially gone many times over budget — since then, it’s done much to redeem itself in the eyes of ‘burghers’, and now, like its equivalent in Sydney, it’s become the city’s most identifiable landmark. There’s a rich programme of classical music, but equally beguiling is the structure itself. Ride the escalator to the foyer to admire the hypnotic, organic forms designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. elbphilharmonie.de ST PAULI PIERS: Stately copper-domed port buildings rise over bobbing jetties at this peerless Hamburg attraction, where crowds come to spectate on the ferries and sightseeing boats putter along the Elbe. This spot is also home to the 1911-built Elbe Tunnel — pedestrians can tread a narrow subsea passageway, with ocean-going ships sailing directly over their heads. hamburg.com


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