The largest park in Hamburg, the Altonaer Volkspark spreads across a great expanse of greenery in the west of the city, offering residents and visitors a vast and varied landscape for recreation and relaxation. Laid out in the early twentieth century as a people's park, in keeping with a movement of the era to provide generous public green spaces for the growing urban population, it was designed with a naturalistic character, combining broad meadows and lawns with extensive woodland, winding pat.....

On the northern bank of the Elbe, just west of Hamburg's harbour, a surprising ribbon of sand stretches for several kilometres past the old fishing village of Oevelgoenne and the suburb of Othmarschen, the city beach known to everyone as the Elbstrand. It is not a seaside resort but a working river shore, and that is precisely its charm: sunbathers and picnickers spread out on the sand within touching distance of one of Europe's busiest waterways, while vast container ships, tugs and ferries gli.....

Handmade ice cream in inventive flavours, made on the premises from natural ingredients, has made Luicella's a much-loved Hamburg institution, and its branch on the Osterstrasse, in the lively Eimsbuettel district, is one of several the small local chain runs across the city. The business was founded by two enthusiasts determined to make ice cream the old-fashioned way, churning it fresh in the shop from real, regional ingredients rather than industrial mixes, with milk sourced from farms in the.....

The name means ropewalk, a reminder that ropes for sailing ships were once made along this stretch of Hamburg. Today the Reeperbahn is the heart of the city's nightlife in the St. Pauli district and its best-known red-light street, nicknamed the sinful mile. Rope makers settled here in 1626, when the trade was moved out beyond the city walls onto the country road towards Altona. For most of the 17th and 18th centuries this was a working ropewalk rather than a place of entertainment. As the nea.....