Top 10 Attractions in Hamburg

The largest model railway in the world, Miniatur Wunderland features more than 12,000 meters of track and almost 900 different trains, set within Hamburg’s historic warehouse district of Speicherstadt. It includes areas dedicated to railways of the United States and Scandinavia, as well as different regions across Germany. In addition to its railways and trains, Miniatur Wunderland also features meticulously recreated airports, planes, buildings and humans, all of which are illuminated by more than 300,000 lights.

Miniatur Wunderland was designed by twin brothers Frederick and Gerrit Braun, with the mountainous German region of the Harz the first section to be created ...

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Nicknamed the “Gateway to the World”, the Port of Hamburg is the largest in Germany and the second-busiest port in Europe. It was founded in 1189 by Frederick I due to its strategic location along the River Elbe and enabled Hamburg to emerge as a leading trade city in Central Europe.

Today the Port of Hamburg (the Hamburger Hafen) is home to many of the city’s most famous attractions and ideally explored by boat tours that depart from Landungsbrücken. This rich historical setting is home to modern bars, musical theaters and museum ships, as well as a floating boat church ...

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Hamburg boasts a fascinating seafaring history and the best place to discover the maritime events and people that have shaped the city is at the International Maritime Museum. It’s housed in an immense red-brick heritage building in the HafenCity quarter of Hamburg and traces more than 3,000 years of maritime history through artifacts, model ships and artworks.

The International Maritime Museum Hamburg is based around the private collection of Peter Tamm, which was begun in 1934 when he was just six years old. From a single model ship gifted by his mother, it has expanded into more than 40,000 items and over one million photographs ...

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Set across three connected buildings in Hamburg’s Altstadt district, the Kunsthalle is one of Germany’s most prestigious art galleries and one of the largest museums in the country. It nestles between the two Alster lakes and the Hauptbahnhof and is designed around four different sections: the Gallery of Old Masters, the Gallery of 19th-century Art, the Gallery of Classical Modernism and the Gallery of Contemporary Art.

The Kunsthalle was first established in 1849 when it opened as the Städtische Gallerie, however the rapid growth of its collection soon necessitated a new building ...

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Dominating the Rathausmarkt square in the Altstadt quarter of the city is the sumptuous neo-Renaissance Hamburg Rathaus (City Hall). It was completed in 1897 and serves as the seat of the Hamburg government, with offices for the First Mayor of Hamburg and meeting spaces among its 647 rooms. Guided tours of this Hamburg landmark enable you to see the government in action and many rooms are opened during the annual Long Night of Museums event that takes place each April.

The Hamburg Rathaus was designed by a group of seven architects led by Martin Haller and replaced the old city hall that was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1842 ...

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The most famous church in Hamburg is St. Michael’s, which was built in an opulent Baroque style during the mid 18th century. Unlike many of the churches in the city that were built by Roman Catholics and later converted to Protestantism during the Reformation, St. Michael’s was intended from the outset to be one of the finest Hanseatic Protestant churches in Germany.

The 132-meter-high spire of St. Michael’s is covered with copper and shines brightly amidst the Hamburg skyline ...

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The largest rural cemetery in the world, the Ohlsdorf Cemetery sprawls across 966 acres in Hamburg’s Ohlsdorf quarter. More than 1.5 million burials have taken place throughout its history and there are around 280,000 burial sites within the cemetery, together with 12 chapels.

While most of the people buried at the Ohlsdorf Cemetery are civilians, there are also a large number of prisoners-of-war in the Hamburg Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery. Memorials for the victims of Nazi persecution and the Hamburg Firestorm of World War II are found in its grounds, as well as monuments dedicated to those who belonged to Hamburg’s anti-Nazi resistance ...

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One of the most important museums of applied arts in Europe, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg is situated within a 19th-century building that resembles a neo-Renaissance palace. It showcases china, furniture and silver from Northern Germany, applied arts from East Asia and an impressive collection of keyboard instruments and porcelain. There are works dating from the ancient era, right up to pieces from present-day craftspeople.

The Hamburg Museum of Arts and Crafts was modeled on London’s Victoria and Albert Museum when it was founded in 1874 and moved to its current premises on the Steintorplatz in 1877 ...

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While the Elbe River has long been the focal point of Hamburg’s trade and port, one of its tributaries, the Alster, also plays an important role in the social life of the city. Originating as a small bog in the Timhagen Brook near Henstedt-Ulzburg, the Alster flows around 25 kilometers north to Hamburg. It’s here that the Inner and Outer Alster have been created, two artificial lakes that are connected to the river and surrounded by many of Hamburg’s most scenic recreational areas and historic avenues.

Picturesque walking trails line the shores of these “Great Lakes” and they provide a setting for sailing and paddle boating during the summer months and ice-skating during the winter ...

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Sprawling on the edge of the St. Pauli Piers, Wallringpark consists of four beautifully maintained gardens to the west of the Altstadt and Alster Lake. It includes the Kleine and Grosse Wallanlagen, which are laid out along the line of the old fortifications, and the Old Botanic Garden, together with the 116-acre Planten und Blomen that was created in 1821.

The first plant to be established in the Planten und Blomen gardens was by Johann Georg Christian Lehmann and it can still be seen next to the Hamburg Dammtor station entrance of the park ...

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