Hamburg harbour (#2867)

The view right here is down the tracks from Landungsbrücken u-bahn station towards the construction of Elbphilharmonie Concert Hall (more on that later).

Visiting Hamburg actually dates back to my childhood – I was raised in a port city and spent quite a bit of time around the waterfront as a child, so was curious about Hamburg. Luckily it was a very easy day-trip from Berlin since the train takes just 2 hours and the station in Hamburg is close to the port. Like everywhere else, there were far more tourists than I expected, but it was an overall quite enjoyable day of exciting scenery and friendly, helpful, locals.

Updated 7/21/2015: Thanks for links from Kiezkickerde (in comments below), there's some important WWII additions here. Based on the awkward Google translations of German webpages, here's my summary. The round building in the distance is what is called a Zombeck tower (bunker). Such towers were built between 1939 and 1942 to provide shelter for citizens from air raids. The bunkers are unique in that the inside is basically a spiraling ramp, a design that provided shelter for up to 1000. After the war there were plans to demolish the shelters, but as Germany moved into the Cold War, the shelters were kept.