Hamburg (Land) hotels collection

Hamburg owns an island in the North Sea, Neuwerk, reached by horse-drawn cart across the mudflats once the tide has gone out. The same tide runs up the Elbe as far as the city, where the water in the canals rises and falls at the foot of the Speicherstadt: warehouses of dark red brick set on oak piles. Behind the dykes, the Vierlande grow their flowers around half-timbered farmhouses under reed thatch. Downstream, Blankenese stacks its captains' houses up the bank, served by flights of steps for want of room for streets, and container ships file past below the gardens.