Germany (Lonely Planet, 6th Edition) - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [600]
You can simply wander through its intriguing streets, look down on it from the High Flyer Balloon (Map; 3008 6968; www.highflyer-hamburg.de; Deichtorstrasse 1-2; adult/student/child per 15min €15/10/8; 10am-10pm, weather permitting), which lifts you 150m into the air while remaining tethered to the ground, or take a Barkassen (small barge) trip up its canals.
Kapitän Prüsse (Map; 313 130; www.kapitaen-pruesse.de, in German; Landungsbrücken 3; tours from €12.50) offers regular Speicherstadt tours, leaving from the port. Other Barkassen operators drum up business opposite the archipelago, near Hohe Brücke. The area is beautifully lit at night.
In the post-industrial age, many of the warehouses have been put to new use as museums. The centrepiece is the new International Maritime Museum (Map; 3009 2300; www.internationales-maritimes-museum.de; Koreastrasse 1; adult/child €10/7; 10am-6pm Tue-Wed & Fri-Sun, 10am-8pm Thu) It takes 10 floors to house this, the world’s largest private collection of maritime treasures. Professor Peter Tamm Sr has amassed an astonishing 26,000 model ships, 50,000 construction plans, 5000 illustrations, 2000 films, 1.5 million photographs and much more, including innumerable nautical devices, uniforms, military and other objects documenting 3000 years of maritime history.
Other Speicherstadt museums include the following:
Dialog im Dunkeln (Dialogue in Darkness; Map; 0700-443 3200, 309 6340; www.dialog-im-dunkeln.de; Alter Wandrahm; adult/student/child €15/9/6; 9am-5pm Tue-Fri, 10am-8pm Sat, 11am-7pm Sun, phone reservation required) Hour-long, pitch-black journey with a blind guide through recreated natural and urban landscapes, giving you a memorable impression of what it’s like not to see.
Hamburg Dungeon (Map; information 3600 5500, tickets 3005 1512; www.thedungeons.com; Kehrwieder 2; adult/concession/child €18.95/17.95/13.95; 10am-6pm Jul & Aug, 10am-5pm Mar-Jun & Sep-Dec, 11am-5pm Jan & Feb) Camped-up chamber of horrors brought to life by actors, incorporating various rides. Tours depart every seven minutes and last around one hour. Older kids will get a kick out of it, but it’s not recommended for those under 10.
Miniatur-Wunderland (Map; 300 6800; www.miniatur-wunderland.de; Kehrwieder 2; adult/concession/under 16yr/child under 1m tall €10/7/5/free; 9.30am-6pm Mon & Wed-Fri, 9.30am-9pm Tue, 8am-9pm Sat, 8.30am-8pm Sun) Kids and trainspotters will delight at this, the world’s largest model railway, with astonishing recreations of recognisable landmarks. In busy times, prepurchase your ticket online to skip the queues.
Speicherstadtmuseum (Map; 321 191; www.speicherstadtmuseum.de; St Annenufer 2; adult/concession €3/1.90; 10am-5pm Tue-Sun) A century-old warehouse is the atmospheric backdrop for exhibitions on Hamburg’s trading role (mostly in German).
Spicy’s Gewürzmuseum (Map; 367 989; www.spicys.de; Am Sandtorkai 32; adult/child €3/1; 10am-5pm Tue-Sun) This spice and herb museum invites you to exercise your olfaction to the fullest.
Return to beginning of chapter
HafenCity
The Speicherstadt merges into Europe’s biggest inner-city urban development, HafenCity. Here, a long-abandoned area of 155 hectares is being redeveloped with restaurants, shops, apartments and offices in an enormous regeneration project encompassing 12 distinctive quarters. In the next 20 years, it’s anticipated that some 40,000 people will work and 12,000 will live here. Plans include a primary school and a university.
The squat brown-brick former warehouse at the far west of the zone is being transformed into the new Elbphilharmonie (Elbe Philharmonic Hall; http://elbphilharmonie-bau.de), due for completion by 2012. Pritzker Prize–winning Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron are responsible for the design, which, like their Tate Modern building in London, boasts a glass top. This time, however, they’re being far more ambitious, as the glass facade