This is a section of the botanical gardens in Hamburg. It's a beautifully manicured garden with…read moreclassic Japanese features like vibrant blossoms, bonsai trees, manicured and shaped trees, a Japanese tea house and water features. It's a lonely place to walk around and it seems they also use this as a wedding location in town. If you are in the botanical gardens of Hamburg you will see this place as you walk around. A lovely place to visit when in town.

We have done several bike tours in European cities and this was definitely in the top three. Our…read moreguide, Savvy, did a fantastic job pacing the group and always made himself hard. He was also very informative and always checked to see if we had other questions he had not addressed. He also stuck around after the tour to give us suggestions on where to make reservations for dinner. (He was spot on with that recommendation. We ate at Rice Brothers in the Portuguese quarter of Hamburg and it was fantastic.) Definitely recommend using this tour company.

A great way to see Hamburg. The 3-speed bikes are simple to use, comfortable, and can be equipped…read morewith a basket for small items like a day pack. The bike tour hits many of the city's highlights. The route is mostly along bike paths and city streets. With the exception of one small, gentle hill, the route has little elevation change for easy peddling. We booked our tour through Vaitor and requested an English speaking guide. Although our fellow riders spoke German, the tour was primarily in English. Special thanks to our German friends for being so gracious. Florian, our guide, was friendly and knowledgeable about the many engaging sights along the tour. He truly enjoyed taking questions and sharing information about Hamburg. Highly recommended.

Park Fiction must be one of the coolest places in Hamburg - one of the ones with the most stupid…read morename, too. Although it feels a bit as if you jumped on a rocket and got to the future when you get up here. The park is so close to Landungsbrücken, yet so different. But still with the same pretty view of harbor, cranes and ships. It isn't really much more than a park, but the view makes it worth it. The lack of tourists as well and let's just face it: the sort-of strange details like hammocks and palm trees that look like they've been build out of Lego, too. Awesome place to just sit and talk with a friend or two, three, four, while enjoying Harbor Hamburg around you.

A world of fake metal palm trees in front of a spectacular industrial vista, but the air is…read moresurprisingly clean. Cool place to lie about in the sun on a nice day, and there's often live music in from of the Pudel club, right next to the park. It's rumoured that Radiohead based their classic "Fake Plastic Trees" on this actual park.

'Inner-Alster' is the smaller part of a lake that defines the heart of Hamburg. Beyond two bridges…read more- one named in honour of president Kennedy - is the Outer-Alster, a lake of 1,2 square miles. A net of more than 120 miles of waterways meanders through the city. In spring it is unbelievably beautiful to canooe this wonderworld. Blossoming trees and dedicately tended gardens border the rivers and creeks, the canals and cul-de-sacs. More than 50 kinds of birds build nests and rise their offspring between low hanging branches, dusted by pollen from countless bushes and trees. Four weeks ago the swans were freed again - after incarnation for the winter time. Never before they could court as undisturbed as 2020.

Jetzt im Herbst ist ein Blick vom Jungfernstieg auf die Alster schöner denn je. Heine hat in seinen…read morejungen Jahren oft im Pavillon gesessen, der damals noch anders aussah. Und wahrscheinlich hat der Schwerenöter weniger auf die Alster als auf den Jungfernstieg gesehen, auf dem junge Damen flanierten. Tatsächlich war das Theater-Viertel - am heutigen Gänsemarkt - mit dem dazugehörigen Straßenstrich - nur einen Steinwurf entfernt. Wenn man heute im ALEX am Jungfernstieg sitzt, kann man erahnen, wie romantische Gefühle aufkommen können. Wenn man ein Schiff wie die St. Georg betritt, fühlt man sich ein bisschen zurückversetzt in das 19. Jahrhundert. Heine hätte Dampfschiffe gemocht.

PSA: The entrance is on a small commercial/office park street off Gasstraße *not* Mendelssohnstraße…read moreas it might look like on some maps. Don't make the mistake I did and wander around in circles wasting precious time where you could have been climbing! Cool, now that that's over with... My hometown gym is Dogpatch Boulders in SF, and I routinely complain about how Dogpatch has "ruined" other climbing gyms for me because bouldering just isn't as fun anywhere else. So when my coworker described FLASHH as "like Dogpatch," I was skeptical. Turns out he was right! The problems here are challenging, with a wide variety of holds and routes. There's plenty of space, and a range of route heights as well. Problems tend to involve fewer, larger holds and more reach and flexible movement than I'm used to, which was surprisingly fun rather than frustrating (given my short height). Routes are rated on the Fontainebleau scale, typical in Europe, rather than the V scale. I have yet to figure out the exact conversion, but regardless there's plenty of variety in problems to keep climbers at all levels interested. Finally, the most important question: How to pronounce the name of this place? Is the second "H" silent? Guess I'll have to go back and ask!

I've been to climbing gyms all over the place, and this is easily one of the nicest. They've really…read moremade the best of the huge amount of space they have. There's good problem variety, both in style and in difficulty, and at the end of the night I was going home because I was beat, not because I was bored. Having only been there once, I can't say how well they handle problem rotation, but considering the attention paid to everything else (and the size of the place), I feel comfortable assuming they do a good job. Despite having other climbing gyms closer, this is the place I'll be getting a membership to. The only downside is that it was a seriously hot night and the fans were not at all keeping up. I imagine most of the time this isn't a problem, but it was basically a sauna.