Hamburg

Germany

Things to do in Hamburg:

View the Gallery Street scene

Hamburg Restaurants

Affordable (62)

Drei Tageszeiten

A mainstay of the upscale M�lenkamp neighbourhood, this stylish bistro features a seasonally fresh, international menu paired to a superlative wine list. read more
Fine dining (52)

Alt-Hamburger Aalspeicher

An institution housed in a 16th-century building on the city's oldest surviving canal-side byway, this family-run restaurant boasts traditional local dishes without equal. read more

Hamburg Nightlife

Chilled (45)

Caf� SternChance

Located within the shadow of Hamburg's iconic radio and television tower, the Fernsehturm, this charming beer garden is flanked by lily ponds and a large indoor hall anchored by a roaring fireplace... read more
Clubbing (58)

Caf� Sommerterrassen

Few places are as relaxing or atmospheric - especially on warm summer nights - as this beer garden, which overlooks the tidal basin on the south side of Stadtpark (Take the U3 to Borgweg). read more

This Month in Hamburg:

By Farhad Heydari

Shopping: For hard-to-find coffee-table titles, limited edition volumes and special-issue tomes covering subjects like architecture, photography, gastronomy and the arts, head to Sautter & Lackmann at 71/72 Admiralit�tstrasse (sautter-lackmann.de).

Key areas: As the second-largest harbour in Europe and with a seafaring tradition that dates back to the Hanseatic League and beyond, Hamburg has a special relationship with its waterfront. The Harbour Festival celebrates it with a three-day land-and-sea extravaganza featuring 300 vessels ranging from steam ships to yachts on a weekend that culminates with fireworks. 11-13 May (hafengeburtstag.de).

Hamburg News & Gossip

Reeperbahn Festival

It might be Europe's most raunchy destination but for one weekend, on 20-22 September, the Reeperbahn - and the St Pauli district around it - will become the centre of a cool arts-and-music celebration. The Reeperbahn Festival showcases bohemian culture through spoken word, comics, films, talks and exhibitions, while by night there are gigs by hot, upcoming bands in the venues along the legendarily debauched strip. It confi rms what the citizens of Hamburg already know: that theirs is one of the most cutting-edge, coolest cities in northern Europe. reeperbahnfestival.com

Hamburg Trivia

May: Hamburg is Germany's musical capital and one of Europe's largest presenters of big-production plays, with such perennial favourites as The Lion King, Mamma Mia! and Dirty Dancing currently in revue.
April: Despite being laid out completely haphazardly, getting lost in Hamburg is virtually impossible. That's because of a unique house numbering system, where the lowest house numbers on each street point to the direction of the city-centre. So if you're wandering the cobble-carpeted streets or the wide boulevards and see the numbers increasing, you're going farther away!
March: Built in 1952, the Kennedybr�cke ("Kennedy Bridge"), which splits the Alster into the Inner and Outer lakes, also runs across the tenth degree of longitude and is marked with a brass plate.