Hamburg
Two lakes in the middle of the city and a great river at its edge, two hotels with three MICHELIN Keys on the Alster, two kitchens with three stars, and an S-Bahn from the terminal to the Hauptbahnhof in twenty-five minutes.
- Arrival
- Hamburg Airport · HAM
- To the city
- About 25 minutes to the Hauptbahnhof by S-Bahn
- Private jets
- Business aviation handling at HAM
- Best time
- June to September
The city
The Alster and the Elbe.
Hamburg is built around water. The Vier Jahreszeiten has stood on the Inner Alster since 1897; across the Outer Alster, The Fontenay opened in 2018 on the site of the old InterContinental, drawn as three circles; and down the Elbe at Nienstedten, the Louis C. Jacob has taken guests since 1791 under its lime trees.
Summer is short and gentle: from June to September the afternoons reach eighteen to twenty-two degrees. The 2026 guide gives the city sixteen starred restaurants, among them two with three stars, The Table in HafenCity and Haerlin at the Vier Jahreszeiten.
Arriving
Fuhlsbüttel, one line to town.
Hamburg Airport, with a longest runway of 3,666 metres, handled around 14.8 million passengers in 2025.
- Copenhagen 45 min
- Amsterdam 50 min
- Athens 3 h 00
- Delhi 8 h 05 long-range jet
- Cape Town 12 h 55 long-range jet
When to go
June to September.
Maritime and changeable, with rain in every month and most of it in July and August. Summers rarely pass twenty-two degrees; winters are grey but seldom harsh.
- 3° J 58
- 4° F 43
- 7° M 48
- 12° A 49
- 17° M 58
- 20° J 68
- 21° J 80
- 22° A 82
- 18° S 65
- 13° O 59
- 8° N 67
- 4° D 68
What to see and do
Days in and around Hamburg.
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Landmark
The Inner Alster
The lake in the city centre, with the Vier Jahreszeiten and Neuer Jungfernstieg on its western shore.
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Landmark
HafenCity
The new quarter on the old harbour, where The Table cooks at a curved counter.
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Landmark
The Elbchaussee
The road that follows the Elbe west of the centre, past Landhaus Scherrer to the Louis C. Jacob at Nienstedten.
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Opera & music
Elbphilharmonie
Herzog & de Meuron's concert hall opened on 11 January 2017, with a 2,100-seat Grand Hall and a public Plaza 37 metres above the harbour.
Official site -
Opera & music
Hamburg State Opera
Descended from the Oper am Gänsemarkt of 1678, Germany's first public opera house, the Staatsoper plays opera and the Hamburg Ballet in its 1955 house on Dammtorstraße.
Official site -
Culture
Hamburger Kunsthalle
Caspar David Friedrich's Wanderer above the Sea of Fog hangs here among Runge, Menzel and Liebermann, with Manet, Monet and Cézanne in the French rooms.
Official site -
Food & wine
Altonaer Fischmarkt
Every Sunday morning since 1703, traders set up on the Elbe at Altona, around the brick Fish Auction Hall of the 1890s.
Official site -
Golf
Hamburger Golf-Club Falkenstein
Colt, Alison and Morrison laid out the club's 18 holes between 1928 and 1930, and guest tee times can be requested from the club founded in 1906.
Official site -
Racing & sport
Deutsches Derby at Hamburg-Horn
Run for the 157th time in 2026, Germany's classic for three-year-olds closes the Hamburg Racing Club's Derby meeting at the Horn racecourse.
Official site -
Food & wine
Altes Land
Downstream on the Elbe's south bank, these 143 km² of orchards, mostly apples and cherries, make up northern Europe's biggest contiguous fruit region.
Official site
Where to stay
On the lakes and above the river.
Shown for information. We have no arrangement with any of these hotels.
- Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten On Neuer Jungfernstieg since 1897, 156 rooms and suites over the Inner Alster, with three-star Haerlin and a spa of almost 1,000 square metres.
- The Fontenay Three interlocking circles after Jan Störmer, opened in 2018, 130 rooms and an indoor-outdoor pool on the roof above the lake.
- Hotel Louis C. Jacob Receiving guests on the Elbchaussee since 1791, with 84 rooms and a lime-tree terrace looking down on the river.
- Tortue Hamburg A design hotel in the centre with three restaurants, JIN GUI among them, and a run of bars from bar noir to bar bleu.
- Landhaus Flottbek Twenty-six rooms under 200-year-old beams in the green west of the city, with the Scandinavian HYGGE restaurant.
Where to dine
Three stars twice.
From the MICHELIN Guide 2026, shown for information. We have no arrangement with any of these restaurants.
- The Table Kevin Fehling Three Michelin stars Creative €€€€ Shanghaiallee, HafenCity
- Haerlin Three Michelin stars Creative French €€€€ Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten
- Lakeside Two Michelin stars Creative €€€€ The Fontenay
- 100/200 Kitchen Two Michelin stars Chef Thomas Imbusch Brandshofer Deich, Rothenburgsort
- Atlantic Restaurant One Michelin star French contemporary €€€€ Hotel Atlantic, An der Alster
- The Lisbeth One Michelin star Regional €€€ Deichstraße
- Jellyfish One Michelin star Seafood Weidenallee, Eimsbüttel
- Piment One Michelin star French with Moroccan spices Lehmweg
- Landhaus Scherrer One Michelin star Classic regional Elbchaussee, Othmarschen
Elsewhere in Germany
More reasons to come.
- Berlin The Brandenburg Gate, Museum Island and a capital still remaking itself.
- Munich The opera, the beer halls, and the Alps an hour to the south.
- Frankfurt The banking capital, with one of the busiest airports in Europe.
- Baden-Baden A spa town on the edge of the Black Forest, with its casino and festival hall.
- Sylt A North Sea island of dunes and thatched houses, with an airport of its own.
- Garmisch-Partenkirchen Under the Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany.
Flying to Hamburg?
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A Business or First Class seat on a scheduled airline, or an aircraft of your own. Tell us the date and how many are travelling, and we reply with one final price, our margin included.