Handpicked experience · Hamburg
Hamburg, Germany
A city lake that is really a twelfth-century millpond, more bridges than Venice, Amsterdam and London together, and a bombed spire kept standing on purpose.
Tour around the beautiful city of Hamburg on board a convenient Hop-on Hop-off bus service
Enjoy listening to the history and culture of Hamburg via live commentary guide
Take photos and videos along the route and share the fun on social media
Open-top double-deckers for views and photographs
Stops beside the harbour, the lake and the main shopping streets
Freedom to break the journey wherever it looks worth an hour
A full circuit in about an hour when ridden straight through
A hop-on hop-off ticket for the main Hamburg circuit, twenty-nine stops taking in the warehouse district, the new harbour quarter and the entertainment strip. The full loop runs about an hour if you stay aboard.
Open-top double-deckers run the circuit continuously, so you ride the whole thing for orientation or get off wherever looks worth an hour and pick up a later bus. The upper deck is the point when the weather allows it. Attraction entry is arranged separately at each door.
The large body of water the route runs beside is not natural. In 1190 the citizens dammed a small river to drive a watermill, and the reservoir they created never went away. Eight centuries later the city grew around it, the banks became the most expensive addresses in northern Germany, and the whole thing is still, technically, an industrial installation from the twelfth century.
Roughly two and a half thousand of them, over canals, the two rivers, the harbour basins and the lake outflows. No other European city has anything close. Most are unremarkable individually, which is exactly why the number surprises people who assume they would have noticed.
The blackened spire the bus passes belongs to a church destroyed in the raids of 1943. It was never rebuilt. The tower was left as it stood as a memorial, with the ruined nave open to the sky beneath it, and a lift now runs up inside it to a viewing platform. For two years in the 1870s it was the tallest building in the world.
The concert hall on the harbour has a public viewing plaza partway up, and you reach it on a curved escalator eighty metres long, arranged so that you cannot see the far end from either end. Access to the plaza is free with a timed ticket collected at the door, and it is one of the best places in the city to understand the layout you have been riding around.
The top deck is open to whatever the weather is doing, and Hamburg's weather changes fast. Buses run to a timetable rather than continuously in the quieter months. Cancellation is free up to a day ahead.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
About an hour for the full loop if you stay on the bus, across twenty-nine stops. Getting off and rejoining later is the point of the ticket.
No. Citizens dammed a small river in 1190 to power a watermill, and the reservoir stayed. The city grew around it, and it remains technically a twelfth-century industrial installation.
More than Venice, Amsterdam and London put together — roughly two and a half thousand, over canals, two rivers, the harbour basins and the lake outflows.
It was destroyed in the 1943 raids and deliberately never rebuilt. The tower stands as a memorial with the ruined nave open to the sky, and a lift now runs up to a viewing platform inside it.
The route up to the concert hall's public plaza, eighty metres long and bent so that neither end is visible from the other. The plaza itself is free with a timed ticket collected at the door.
No — the ticket covers the bus. Entry to anything you get off to see is arranged at that door.
When it is open, which depends on the weather. Hamburg's changes quickly, so a waterproof layer is worth carrying even on a bright morning.