and i kicked off our recent trip across germany  and while we only had one full day to explore  

we hit the ground running ready to eat see and  do as much as possible after a solid night's  

rest we seemed to have kicked the jet leg and we  spent our day exploring the red brick warehouses  

of spiderstadt touring the port by boat eating  our fill of pickled herring taking part in a  

chocolate making workshop and a whole lot more  the following is our hamburg travel guide and  

in this video we're going to be sharing 10  things to do in hamburg during your visit

we just had to stop and pose in front of the  coffee bean because you're a major coffee  

lover right i had four cups this morning so  that's how you get over jetlag my friends  

and we're just loving walking around  the city in the morning it's quiet  

it's calm so we're just getting a feel for what  hamburg's all about it's pretty impressive so far

okay so right now we are walking around the area  known as schweicherstadt in hamburg and that means  

city of warehouses and as you can see around me  we're seeing a lot of red brick buildings it's  

a very historic part of the city an old part of  the city and this was actually built as a free  

port where people could transport goods without  paying customs so yeah we're really enjoying it  

just walking around seeing the architecture even  though it's a very gray day and it's kind of rainy  

i feel like the red brick buildings really  stand out and you can enjoy it even more so  

later on we're actually going to be taking you for  a boat tour so you can see the city from the water  

but so far excellent first impressions  we're having a great time here in hamburg  

is located within the huffin city  corridor and it's probably the image  

of hamburg germany that comes to  mind when you hear the city's name  

the buildings here date from 1883 to 1927 and  they are works of art these warehouses have  

towers alcoves and cranes that were once  used for loading goods on and off boats  

they stand on timber foundations along the canals  and they're about as magical as warehouses get

hello so this is the most impressive view that  i've seen so far from the port area i just  

can't believe the diversity of boats you can see  here you have everything from small river boats  

to working cargo vessels to even  a few different american style  

there's a mississippi river boat here so you  kind of have a little bit of everything going on

then it was time to ride the ferry  which if you're on a budget is a  

pretty great way to see hamburg from the water

so right now we are riding the ferry just around  the harbor to kind of see the city from the water  

we're on line 72 which kind of does  like a triangular route so you can  

stay on and get off at the same spot  if you want to and also it's based on  

the honor system so you buy your ticket  but you don't actually show it to anyone  

maybe sometimes somebody will come on board  and check but otherwise you know just get your  

ticket get on board enjoy the journey and no one's  really going to bother you and yeah so far so good

once we got off the ferry we walked over  to the entrance to the old el bay tunnel  

this place was quite the sensation when it first  opened as it connected central hamburg with the  

docks and shipyards making the commute to work in  one of the world's biggest harbors so much easier

so we just finished crossing the old elbe tunnel  which goes underneath the north arm of the elbe  

river and yeah it's a pretty cool unusual  attraction they have these massive elevators  

with wooden doors it dates back to the year 1911  and it's actually open 24 hours a day for cyclists  

and pedestrians you can actually also get vehicles  going across also there's like spiral staircases  

in there so you can kind of admire the structure  of the elevator taking passengers up and down  

so yeah i really liked it it's an unusual  tourist attraction but worth visiting if  

you're kind of like in the harbor area and  you want to get to the other side of the river

then it was time for lunch and you know how much  we enjoy sampling the local cuisine when we travel  

no trip to hamburg would have been complete  without trying a pickled herring sandwich  

lunchtime here by the water today's lunch is all  about the fish specifically herring today we went  

for one marinated and fried herring sandwich  so yeah i'm gonna take my first bite of this  

my fried marinated herring this is that this is  the one that the guy recommended when i was like  

what's your special team so here we go

oh the crunch

i really like that wow i haven't had herring  in so long yeah mine is like sweet and sour the  

perfect mix of sweet and sour so i'm just  so excited to try the bismarck pairing we  

first tried this at stralzen like four or five  years ago absolutely loved it it was i think  

the official food of the city there classic  dish in the northern part of germany where  

you're close to the sea can't wait to try this  first bite guys i want to get some onions too

there's just a lot going on with that flavor  first thing i want to mention is just the  

quality of german bread so good then you sink  into the fish nice and sour actually the onions  

add a little bit of sweetness to it overall  delicious lunch and if you're coming to hamburg  

make sure to have one of these sandwiches  before you hop on ferry or any kind of  

tourist boat see the city yeah which is just  going over your shoulder that's kind of cool  

we'll be going on that next  actually about 45 minutes to wait  

and we're on a boat we sure are we are gonna be  taking a one hour tour with bark hassan meyer  

and we're going to be seeing basically all the  attractions that you can find along the river  

there are 46. look at that i feel like this is  going to give us the complete layout of hamburg

there are numerous boater operators  to choose from so you'll have lots  

of options depending on your budget and  how long you want to be out on the water  

we ended up doing the classic one  hour tour with barcos and meier  

they have one daily departure in english from  april to october otherwise the commentary isn't  

german but they do give you a booklet that has  information on all the landmarks along the route

i can tell you my favorite part of the river  cruise hands down was getting intimate and  

up close with the working port now we got so  close i could actually see the cranes loading  

and offloading the containers it was amazing  and my goodness those ships were enormous like  

when you get that close to them you just feel  like like an end standing next to goliath  

all right guys a bit of a different activity now  we have arrived at choco bersom where we're going  

to be making our own chocolates essentially i'm  pretty excited about this i'm a huge chocolate  

lover it's a 90 minute experience and first you  kind of go through the history of chocolate learn  

about the cocoa bean and then you actually have  the opportunity to make either milk chocolate  

or a dark chocolate bar we're both going for  milk chocolate yeah and with three special  

ingredients a fun experiment because  we got to choose three ingredients each  

so yeah we're going to show you the  process and it's our turn let's go wow

yeah you know what the hardest thing  was choosing the three ingredients  

they all look so good so i ended up  i'm gonna dump it on here and show you  

so i got white chocolate coconut and the  special ingredient of the week was ginger  

so the cool thing is you just grab it and  sprinkle it on if you wish and it's good to go

shredded coconut cranberries and a maritini i  think it's like some kind of cookie now that  

sounds decadent tonight  now i'll show you mine here  

mine has white chocolate chips coconut and ginger

after creating our own personalized  chocolate bars we continued with the  

tour and got to sample chocolate  at different stages of production  

hamburg's chocolate museum is a super fun  experience for anyone with a sweet tooth

all right guys dinner time we're actually eating  here at our hotel because they have an on-site  

restaurant called nemi and it's an israeli and  middle eastern inspired restaurant but they also  

have like typical dishes like a hamburger since  we're in hamburg visiting we are in hamburg sam  

has gotten a hamburger but in the meantime  we're enjoying some delicious rustic bread  

with lemonade which is a really yummy like  yogurt sauce with olive oil and spices  

and olives it is delicious the  perfect little starter here  

okay so my main dish is here i am super excited  for this this is the jerusalem platter we've  

basically got a bed of hummus spread across the  plate some roasted red peppers a chicken that  

smells delicious we have tahini we've got spices  you might even have onions in there there's a lot  

of magic going on and my mouth is just watering  looking at it so let's dig on in what a combo huh

so good transports me right  back to our trip through israel  

back in 2013 eight years ago a couple years  back crazy okay sam hey i'm in hamburg  

how could i not have a hamburger the birth of  the hamburger was here in case you were wondering  

great reasoning yeah well let's take a look at  this baby so i'm going to show you what's under  

the hood first look at that we got lettuce we've  got it's pulled beef here a whole beef burger  

yeah that is a beautiful burger everything is  just so soft and a little dab dab for your lips  

all right let's try this what  appears to be sweet potato fries

cooked to perfection right to perfection  i should say it was a good meal

after dinner we went for an early  evening stroll around hoffen city  

meandering the canals and checking out all  the different types of vessels on the water  

eventually that led us to the elbe  philharmonic hall also nicknamed the alfie  

we wrote the elevator up to the plaza  level for panoramic views over the city

okay so for today's sunset we decided to come  to the el philharmoni plaza plaza i think it  

is a mouthful enough for you it kind of is it's  like the elb river philharmonic yes center it's  

a place for concerts and all kinds of performances  um and apparently it's really hard to get tickets  

like they're always sold out it's very sought  out to come and see a performance at this place  

so we just went up to the eighth floor to enjoy  the views we figured it would be a nice place at  

sunset today is a bit of a gray day so we didn't  get any spectacular colors but it's really cool  

because you can walk all around and get 360 degree  views of the port area the city you can see the  

ferries coming and going and also the architecture  is quite modern like as you can see it has a  

beautiful glass exterior and then on the plaza  level again more like curved glasses that act  

as doors and then coming down the escalator it's  just it feels like you're heading into a spaceship  

so it's a really cool building i really  like it and who knows maybe one day we'll  

get to see some kind of concert here but today  it's not the day let's continue with our tour

we ended off the evening in this miniature world  that's kind of hard to put into words but really  

you just have to see it to understand it  

so we just finished visiting miniature  wonderland which is a very interesting place  

so you kind of go inside this historic building  and they've got these like scale models of real  

cities around the globe it's kind of like visiting  a place without really going there or like at  

least getting an idea of what a city or different  part of the world looks like yeah sometimes you  

have a bit of a bird's eye view and other times  a distinct vantage point where you can see  

the like the layers of a bridge bridges and  mountains in the background it was pretty cool  

like i really enjoyed the scenes from switzerland  or like down in bavaria and it was like ah  

i'd like to visit some of those places  so yeah it was a really interesting spot  

i think also it's probably a lot of fun if  you're visiting with young kids i feel like  

they would definitely enjoy it and there were lots  of families with young children and they're just  

loving it and they even have trains like model  scale trains going around through these cities  

fun for the whole family fun for the  whole family that was our evening activity  

last but not least during our visit to hamburg  germany we stayed at the altus hafenumt which is  

part of 25 hours hotels the hotel is located  in a historic neo-gothic red brick structure  

that also happens to be the oldest building in  huffin city but inside the rooms are completely  

renovated and super modern and that is our  travel guide to hamburg in 24 hours we hope this  

itinerary gave you a few ideas of the things  you can see eat and do during a short visit  

if you have any other suggestions of things  to do in hamburg germany feel free to share  

those with fellow travelers in the comments  below and lastly if you enjoyed this video  

don't forget to like subscribe and we'll see  you soon with more travels in germany cheers