Speicherstadt, Hamburg

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Speicherstadt is a complex of hundreds of buildings along the canals of Hamburg. These buildings are more than 110 years old and used to be places, where the goods that came from all over the world to Hamburg, could be stored inside the free-Trading-Zone "Freihafen". There were mainly stores for coffee, spices, carpets etc.
A few years ago some of these stores were changed into museums and so you may visit various museums there :
Miniatur-Wunderland
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Hamburg Dungeon - spooky place
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Speicherstadt-Museum
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Deutsches Zollmuseum
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Dialog im Dunkeln - the world of the blind
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Afghanian Museum

This is an area of warehouses, yes thats warehouses, many of which have been converted into offices, or visitor attractions. Having said that alot of them are still used as working warehouses.

Striking buildings in red brick stretch for some distance. You will find bothe the Hamburg Dungeon and the Spice Museum in this area as well as some massive model railway which the locals seemed quite excited about, beats me.

I really like this part of Hamburg. There is a large area with those old storage houses called, which is called "Speicherstadt". It's the biggest building site these days.

I love the architecture of the old storage houses and I'm not sure what I think of the really modern front row of buildings. Some new buildings are interesting too, but I find it not so charming really....it's a cool atmosphere, if you know what I mean.

in the old halls of Hamburgs famous "Storage Halls", which are earlier a duty free zone for shipping goods, now there are some new attractions for tourists!
Of of them is called "Hamburg Dungeon" where you can see the history of Hamburg, eg. the big floods of 1717, the big fire of Hamburgs history

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As in other European harbour cities, the harbour area is being redeveloped and old (quite often very beautiful) storage buildings being turned into business/apartment buildings. Compared to London, Copenhagen and Glasgow, Hamburg started out a bit late on this, with the advantage of avoiding some of the development errors of other places. You can inform yourself on the harbour redevelopment project on the website of the Hamburg city administration. Good project, tasteful conversion.

Most cruises of the harbour and old docklands are leaving from the Landungsbrücken.

Fine though some of the city centre architecture might be – and you can hardly miss the glories of the town hall and St Michel’s church - it was the towering rows of red brick, green roofed buildings of the old Speicherstadt, the warehouse district which caught my imagination. The best way to appreciate what looks like an enormous film set of Gothic and renaissance spires, towers, and fancy gables, is first by boat, when you nose under the neat candle-snuffer cupolas which house the cargo winches then on foot, visiting the spice museum by day or admiring the illuminated bridges by night.
Beyond the warehouses and pushing out further into the river, a new district is currently taking shape and causing much excitement amongst the citizenry. When completed, Hafencity will become the trendiest residential and office accommodation in town, with loft apartments cheek by jowl with architects’ offices and media companies. It will also be a social and cultural centre with an extraordinary new concert hall currently taking shape in the form of a glass wave-shaped auditorium growing above an old warehouse. There will be squares, parks and promenades in Hafencity in due course and of course, a beach and new beach bar for summer evenings.

The World's largest self-contained warehouse complex, among canals and cobblestoned streets. Built between the end of the 19th century and the '10s in the typical and beautiful red-brick style of Hanseatic architecture. It's one of the most picturesque and interesting places in Hamburg, just close to the Harbour and the Altstadt, you really cannot miss it both from the sea and from the streets!

I think already everything has been said about the Speicherstadt. So I will just say that the harbour cruise is a nice and relaxing opportunity to see the harbour and the Speicherstadt. This is just a must-do.