Hamburg is Germany's second largest city and, by historical wealth, arguably its most important. It is a city-state, one of three in Germany (alongside Berlin and Bremen) meaning that Hamburg city and Hamburg state are the same political entity. It was a founding member of the medieval Hanseatic League trading alliance. Today, it is the third largest port in Europe. Also, it is the city where the Beatles, playing the Reeperbahn club between 1960 and 1962, became the Beatles.
The Speicherstadt is The World's Largest Warehouse District (UNESCO)
The Speicherstadt ("warehouse city") is a district of neo-Gothic red-brick warehouses built between 1883 and 1927 on a series of islands in Hamburg Harbor, connected by iron bridges over the canals. The warehouses were bonded storage for goods that could be stored here without paying Hamburg customs duties. The buildings are enormous, colonnaded facades in dark brick, with cargo hoisting machinery still visible on the upper floors. The district is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site (jointly with the adjacent Kontorhaus District) and has been converted into a creative and cultural quarter. It contains the Miniatur Wunderland, the Hamburg Dungeon, the Spice Museum, several architecture and design museums, and dozens of studios, agencies, and startups.
Miniatur Wunderland is The World's Largest Model Railway
Miniatur Wunderland in the Speicherstadt is, by visitor numbers and by scale, the world's largest model railway and miniature world exhibition. It has detailed miniature landscapes of Hamburg, Scandinavia, the American South, Switzerland, Italy, the Airport (with model planes taking off and landing), and other regions. It sounds like a children's attraction and functions as one but the engineering, the humor buried in the scenes, and the scale make it interesting for anyone. You need to remember to book in advance, since it is mandatory (and sells out weeks ahead). You can expect to spend 2–3 hours minimum here.
The Elbphilharmonie
The Elbphilharmonie, opened in January 2017 after a decade of construction and cost overruns, is an 18-story concert hall designed by Herzog & de Meuron, rising from an old warehouse base on the waterfront with a wave-shaped glass upper facade that changes color with the light and sky. The main concert hall seats 2,100 and is considered acoustically exceptional with curved interior walls that are lined with 10,000 gypsum fiber panels individually shaped for sound diffusion. The building's public plaza (the Plaza, on the 8th floor between the warehouse base and the glass superstructure) is free to visit and offers a 360-degree view of Hamburg Harbor that is one of the best free viewpoints.
The Reeperbahn is The Entertainment District
The Reeperbahn in the St. Pauli neighborhood is Hamburg's red-light and entertainment district and has been since the 18th century. It is one of the most concentrated music venue strips in Europe with hundreds of live music clubs, theatres, cabarets, and bars with a working red-light district that operates openly and legally. The Beatles played the Indra Club and the Kaiserkeller in the Reeperbahn; John Lennon called this period the most formative musical education of his life. A Beatles-Platz (commemorative plaza with life-size silhouettes of the five Hamburg-era Beatles) marks the entrance to Grosse Freiheit street where those clubs stood. The Reeperbahn today is a mainstream entertainment destination popular with tourists and locals.
Hamburg's Food Identity
Hamburg's food culture is shaped by its port identity, it is international, pragmatic, and oriented toward the sea. The iconic local food is the Fischbrötchen: a bread roll filled with pickled herring, matjes (raw cured herring), or smoked salmon, topped with onions and remoulade, sold from kiosks at the Fischmarkt (fish market, operating Sunday mornings from 5am) at the harbor. Hamburg's fish market, which has operated on Sunday mornings since 1703, features local fishmongers, produce sellers, and vendors that set up in the early hours. The market closes at 9:30am.