Hamburg, Germany: The Perfect Break

By Adrian Bridge 1055AM GMT 10 March 2010

Comments 6 |

Previous of Images Next Hamburg is a city of pleasing canals, lakes and rivers Photo CORBIS The Beatlemania exhibition, a value trove of memorabilia and displays Photo CORBIS For a normal hotel, try the classical Kempinski Atlantic Photo CORBIS

Why go?

How the East was rediscovered Win a outing for dual to the Oberammergau Passion Play Berlin, Germany My Kind of Town Aachen The appeal of Charlemagne Quedlinburg, Germany My Kind of Town More on holidays in Germany

To have your preconceptions challenged. People who haven"t visited Germany"s second largest city often boot it as a bleak, decrepit industrial port. Those who come afar are astounded to have discovered, yes, a city of naval grit, but additionally one of far-reaching immature expanses and pleasing canals, lakes and rivers.

Hamburg"s outrageous beautiful appetite has regularly captivated media sorts and musicians. It is a place to shop, journey and take a break on seafood. It is a place of thrillingly written hotels.

It is additionally a city on the move the gulf area is now in the throes of a mutation that will spin Hamburg in to one of the majority new-fashioned cities in the world.

Of course, it is still an critical pier (after Rotterdam, the second largest in Europe), and it is unfit to go there and not feel the stability appetite of a 1,200-year-old trading tradition. Parts of the city definitely season in the resources it has generated; others (notably the red-light Reeperbahn district) keep the raffish, decrepit corner that, 50 years ago this August, captivated a organisation of lads from Liverpool that went by the name of the Beatles. Welcome to the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.

Get there by...

Plane. Lufthansa (www.lufthansa.com) flies from Heathrow from about �145 return, together with taxes. Other airlines drifting without delay embody British Airways (www.ba.com) and easyJet (www.easyjet.com)

Stay at...

One of a gorgeous form of engineer hotels. The George (www.thegeorge-hotel.de, 0049 40 280 0300; doubles from �125), close to the Alster lake, plays on Hamburg"s extraordinary affinity for all things British (think Chesterfield sofas and a pointed alloy of the colonial and the contemporary). Check the website www.designhotels.com for serve options together with East, an generous jubilee of unconventional curves; Side, a minimalist fool around on potion and stone; and, for younger, some-more price-conscious visitors, the twenty-five Hours Hotel (doubles from �75). Too modern? Try the classical Kempinski Atlantic (www.kempinski.atlantic.de, 0049 40 28880; doubles requisitioned early from �140), that is where Paul McCartney stayed after behaving in Hamburg in December.

Spend the morning...

Getting your bearings. Despite the drop wrought by the good glow of 1842 and the bombing raids of 1943, there is a loftiness to a little of the buildings of the old locale and along the Jungfernstieg at the finish of the "inner" Alster. If you have time, get to know a little of the superficial districts such as the Schanzenviertel (popular with an catchy set) and Eppendorf (exuding an older-world category and charm).

Have lunch in...

The really acceptable (and central) Art Nouveau environment of the Caf Paris (www.cafeparis.net, 0049 40 3252 7777), where internal dignitaries gnaw the cud (and the French-inspired meals of the day). Mains similar to Boeuf Bourguignon cost about �17.

Spend the afternoon...

Getting behind to where they once belonged. The Beatlemania muster (www.beatlemania-hamburg.com), that non-stop last year, is a value trove of memorabilia and displays detailing the story of the band, and in sold the lengthened durations in between 1960 and 1962 that were outlayed in Hamburg (the Fab Four as we know them came together here rather than Liverpool). There are postcards from Ringo to his grandmother, capricious photos taken by Astrid Kirchherr; and clips from the Strawberry Fields Forever video. Whatever you think of the Beatles, this is a wonderful, enchanting poser tour.

Dine out at...

Fischereihafen (0049 40 381816), a grand fish grill and oyster bar on the harbour. This is one of Hamburg"s premier dining venues with prices to compare (expect to compensate at slightest �50 a head for 3 courses and wine). Despite that, it"s good fun. As is Yakshi"s Bar & Lounge and the grill trustworthy to East (see above), with imaginative, Asian-inspired cuisine and a thespian setting.

Stay out late at...

A song club. Hamburg stays a place of tender low-pitched appetite and innovation. A integrate of the clubs that the Beatles used to fool around in are still going clever (the Indra and the Kaiserkeller). Newer options embody the Grünspan (www.gruenspan.de) Want to go upmarket? Hamburg has an glorious ballet company. Downmarket? Well, not for zero is the Reeperbahn well known as the majority corrupted mile in the universe (but see what to avoid, below).

Spend the subsequent morning...

On the water. Head down to the Elbe and take a journey by the red-brick Speicherstadt (warehouse district) and serve in to Hafen City, a large new growth of Hamburg"s residential and blurb districts. On the way, you will pass docks full of immeasurable enclosure ships and the to some extent built Elbphilharmonie unison hall, that is unfailing to turn the pitch of the city. Ferry no 62 additionally offers good views ofthe harbour.

And afternoon...

Wandering, cycling or sailing on the "outer" Alster (best in open and summer), where grand villas line the lake"s shores. Then strike the shops Hamburg has lots of high-quality garments outlets (embracing normal intelligent and engineer chic) and, ladies take note, multi-storey shoe stores.

At all costs avoid...

The lap-dancing clubs of the Reeperbahn.

Further information

Hamburg Marketing (www.marketing.hamburg.de); Hamburg Tourism (www.hamburg-tourism.de/en)