Canals, Hamburg

This trip takes you from the Inner Alster through the town hall and Schaartor locks into the Elbe. The Elbe waterways are lined by old merchants' buildings and warehouses. The "warehouse quarter" (Speicherstadt) provides vast storage space for carpets, spices, coffee, tobacco etc.

This is where Hafen City, Hamburgs "new docklands" are beeing built and in the "Kesselhaus" or old boiler house there is an exhibition all about this tremendously ambitious town planning project.

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Hamburg has beautiful canals and I heard somebody telling me that there are more canals here than even the beautiful Venice in Italy. I am still to verify the truth of this though, but there is absolutely no doubt that the canals of Hamburg are just beautiful. Here are some photos from the Isekai area (Klosterstren U-Bahn station).

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This amazing, beauitiful stretch of water in the centre of the city with its network of connecting canals must be one of the most enjoyable, and longest, trips of its kind I have ever taken. On board we had an excellent guide who pointed out every single point of interest and readily answered questions.
As well as the tranquil and pretty scenes on my photos we passed down canals bordered by old warehouses and commercial buildings, some decrepit, many of them being put to new uses, and areas bordered by recent residential developments - smart apartment blocks with their own leisure facilities , tennis courts and such like. In between we caught glimpses of the busy shopping areas.
I would thoroughly recommend this tour to get not only a good idea of the history of the city but also that "special view seen from the water" of life in a modern, changing city.

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The Alster is a right tributary of the River Elbe in Northern Germany. It has its source near Henstedt-Ulzburg, Schleswig-Holstein, flows roughly southwards and reaches the Elbe in Hamburg. In the centre of Hamburg the Alster has been dammed. The Alster forms two artificial lakes in the city of Hamburg.
Near channel Alsterflit we admired the big colony of swans.

I didn't know that Hamburg is brought in the book of Guiness records as the city with four and a half thousand bridges. It is more, than in Venice, Amsterdam and London together taken!

You can watch my 4 min 47 sec about Video Hamburg out of my Youtube channel or here on VT.

This is the view from one of the corners of the square in front of the City Hall across one of the canals to where the canal leads into Binnenalster lake. Doesn't it look a bit like venice? Even the birds are there!

One of things I like in Hamburg are the numerous canals all over the city. I like just to sit at the window of the S-Bahn and watching them passing by (pic 1)

It’s a huge water network and you can really enjoy it by a boat tour of course when usually the guide will point and explain some hidden spots and details. It was there when I first learnt that there are about 4500 bridges in Hamburg (yes, more than Venice…)

Many boat tours start from Jungfernstieg station at lake Binnenalster.

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Hamburg boasts more canals than even Venice. It doesn't feel quite the watery haven as Venice, but that's because Hamburg is a much bigger city. Because it does have a lot of water channeling through its streets, and a lot of bridges covering them - well over 2000 at last count. Like Venice the canals can make navigating some of the inner city streets a bit more difficult, but they allow some unbroken views to some of the best sights in the city. For the best views, take a boat tour, because some of the most amazing views can only be seen from canals that have no street nor footpath.

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We took a boat tour through the canals of the "Speicherstadt" (also an awesome visit) and along the harbor. You get to see how huge the "Speicherstadt" is. A few years ago the big ships used to also use these canals and pick-up and unload their cargo their. Nowadays the ships are too big and the "Speicherstadt" is mainly used by "carpet-sellers".
It's an impressive cruise. I, for my part, saw the biggest ships in my hole life.

The entire tour was in German and the audio devices were all broken. big rip off with extremly rude staff.
When we asked for service in English, the response was "when we come to US, do we get services in German"!
would never come back