Hamburg, GermanyOne of the great buildings of the 21st century — Herzog & de Meuron's glass wave concert hall rising from a 19th-century brick warehouse in the HafenCity harbor, with the world's most acoustically perfect concert hall and a public plaza offering the finest panoramic view of Hamburg's harbor, the Elbe, and the city.
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The world's largest warehouse complex and a UNESCO World Heritage Site — seven-storey red-brick warehouses from 1888–1927 standing on oak piles in the Hamburg harbor canals, now converted into museums, design studios, and the Miniatur Wunderland (the world's largest model railway). The most distinctive urban landscape in Germany.
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Hamburg's shopping heart — the elegant Alster Arcades with their white colonnades, Alsterhaus (Hamburg's Harrods equivalent), and the pedestrian Mönckebergstraße leading from the main station to the Rathaus. The Alster lake with its white swan boats and the view of the city hall reflection is the archetypal Hamburg image.
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Germany's most important contemporary art museum — two restored 1914 iron market halls in HafenCity hosting the finest rotating exhibitions of modern photography and contemporary art in Northern Europe. The architecture alone (vast, light-filled industrial spaces) is worth the visit.