Hamburg sightseeing tips

this topic was prompted by a very boring trip on one the double decker Rundfahrt buses.

Ok, let's hear your tips for interesting spots or helpful hints.

If you want to spend an hour and a half on a bus and just be driven around HH, without the chance to get on and off the bus, and hear only minimal english, then the green and yellow bus is for you!

If you want to be able to jump on and off and have lunch at the waterfront or something like that, choose another bus.

other positive of negative experiences?
ideas for showing a visitor a fun afternoon?

Take your visitors to a walk around the Außenalster ... and then on down to Landungsbrücken

I also had a very bad experience on this bus two weeks ago! Two separate "tour guides" were extremely rude to me, Maybe they were bitter about being 40something bus guides but no need to take it out on the customers.

I did have a very enjoyable lunch though on the waterfront area where the "beaches" are. Some nice sandy areas with deckchairs and magnificent baked potato with sour cream and loads of yummy little krabben on top! Wish I could remember the street or restaurant, though maybe someone knows what I mean.

Other tips for that area from me... if you like food... Glückstadter herring buffet and Friedrichkoog´s Fish cafe down on the canal.

A few things I like to do with visitors - not expensive either:

Take the old tunnel under the Elbe at Landungsbrücken for a view of the city you don't usually see. The tunnel itself is a monument to 19th-century engineering.

HVV day passes are also good on the ferries - from Landungsbrücken to Finkenwerder for example, or Teufelsbrück to Finkenwerder, change to ride to Landungsbrücken. It also stops at Övelgönne where there is a museum ship - an old icebreaker. Walking from Övelgönne along the waterfront path to Teufelsbrück is also gives you a good close look at some well-preserved old homes.

If the weather's nice, rent a canoe and paddle along the canals or on the Alster. You'd have really sore arms if you tried to do the whole route in one day, though.

Neighbourhood walks are a good way to spend an afternoon - Ottensen, Schanzenviertel, etc.

There is a museum ship at the harbor (not sure if this is Övelgönne or not...) It's decked out exactly as it would have been when it was sailing and you can peek into all the rooms to see how people lived. Depending on what your company is interested in, I enjoyed both the Puppen Museum in Falkenreid (old house with a huge collection of puppets, dolls and dollshouses, on a lovely property by the Elbe) and the Erotic Museum in Reeperbahn (not everything was racy; there are a lot of beautiful pieces including some sketches by John Lennon, and the museum itself is housed in a beautiful old warehouse that is almost as interesting as the art itself.) I also like the markets to get that European feel - Friday in Eppendorf, Saturday in Eimsbuettel, Fischmarkt on Sunday, probably lots of other ones I don't know about.

1 trip:

- take a car drive through blankenese bahnhofstr., take the street down to the beach, the small streets in Blankenese are so beautiful. i always say: "little italy"
- take a walk to the light house, alone the beach...
- walk back over the blankenese cliffs :-)

lived there for a while... miss it!

Round trip tourist buses are for the naive.
The worst I've seen are in Vienna, London and New York- public transport
for a day costs peanuts but the tourists flock on to these absurdly expensive
"tourist buses" - and the huge advantage of a headphone commentary(??)
Why bother to travel if you cannot read up a little about your destination?

Whenever we have visitors we take them to the Michel. Next to the church there is a little lane with houses from the 17th century. It was built by the guild of chandlers for the widows. A few houses are turned into museums and there is a restaurant in there as well. Quite good food. And probalby the best view of the church I have have seen.
wikipedia on Krameramtsstuben

Another interesting street in that area is the Peterstrasse towards Holstenwall. There are houses from 17th and 18th century to see, plus the Johannes Brahms Museum.

Since most of old Hamburg was destroyed by war and the great fire it is nice to see that a few individual houses have survived and been restored.

I would have thought that an excellent place to visit is the Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg. Its not "just" a model railway. Its a couple of years since we went there but I recall that both my teenage son & daughter were impressed (as well as the adults).

Has anyone been on an organised tour of the Airbus site in Finkenwerder: www.airbus-werksfuehrung.de ?
I havn't been on such a tour - having had a couple of "private" tours of the production line by a member of Airbus staff...

The miniature railway is a good place to visit if you like that kind of thing, and if you live here, about once a year or so because they're adding new landscapes all the time. We watched them building the Swiss Alps exhibit and hope to see it finished the next time round. Timing is important for that place though. It can get reeeallly crowded!

-When at miniaturwunderland, go about 2hrs before closing. Nice and empty and enough time to see everything. Swiss landscape just opened a few weeks ago.

-Reeperbahn is a good add-on after miniaturwunderland and in walking distance along the Landungsbrücken.

-Landungsbrücken ferrys are great(övelgonne is a good dest.) especially so because they can be used with your PTdaypass(HVV).

-Airbus is also cool especially when the "Guppy" is there(just for an idea of the size, it fits a whole plane "inside". No not with wings!!!)

enjoy