HafenCity Hamburg: The Perfect Holiday Apartment

HafenCity is built on land that, until the late 1990s, was part of Hamburg's working port. The development covers around 157 hectares of former industrial harbour, directly east of the old city centre. Construction started in 2000 and is still ongoing. It is one of the largest inner-city urban development projects in Europe and, in terms of what has already been built, one of the most complete.

What makes HafenCity different from most new districts is that it was planned around public space and waterfront access from the start. The Magellan-Terrassen and Marco-Polo-Terrassen are wide open plazas at water level where people sit, eat and watch harbour traffic. The streets are properly walkable. The architecture is deliberately varied: the Elbphilharmonie is the famous exception, but the residential streets and canal bridges that make up most of the district have their own quieter quality. The area guide goes into more detail on HafenCity and the surrounding districts.

As a base for Hamburg, the position is hard to improve on. The Speicherstadt, the UNESCO World Heritage red-brick warehouse district with Miniatur Wunderland and some of the city's best coffee, is 5 minutes on foot. The Elbphilharmonie is 10 minutes. Hamburg's historic centre and the Binnenalster lake are 15 minutes on foot. The U4 U-Bahn line runs through HafenCity, connecting to Hamburg Hauptbahnhof in about 10 minutes and from there to the rest of the city and intercity trains.

The Hamburg Holiday apartment is in the centre of HafenCity. It covers 65 m² across two bedrooms: a master bedroom with a king-size bed and a guest bedroom with a double bed, sleeping up to 4 guests. The floor-to-ceiling glass facade and loggia face the neighbourhood directly rather than a courtyard or a back wall. The open-plan kitchen is fully equipped, there is a dedicated workspace for longer stays, fast WiFi and a Smart TV. The bathroom has a washer-dryer. Full photos and the complete list of amenities are on the apartment page.

HafenCity is still being completed, and some visitors arrive expecting a building site. What they find instead is a finished neighbourhood with good restaurants, a Rewe supermarket in the Überseequartier shopping centre, speciality coffee and a lot of interesting architecture at the edge of the harbour. It is the best-positioned neighbourhood in Hamburg for anyone who wants to be near the Elbphilharmonie, the Speicherstadt and the harbour without giving up easy access to the rest of the city.

To check availability or make an enquiry, use the booking page. The host responds within 24 hours. Booking directly saves up to 25% compared to Airbnb and Booking.com.