Hamburg Harbour

The harbour complex starts just to the south of the city centre and continues on to the town of Harburg in its southern extreme. In the east, it starts right at the eastern borders of Hamburg and runs with the Elbe westwards to   Finkenwerder.

The Harbour area is enhanced by the fact that the Elbe splits into two separate streams the Norder- and Süder-Elbe or Northern and Southern Elbe, making a wide and natural harbour complex. This is the real "foundation" of Hamburg and its sea-going, trading tradition, as one of the founding cities of the ancient Hansa trading league (with Lübeck in the lead in those days). Hamburg's harbour has always been one of its most important assets, only surpassed by what the Hamburgers actually did with it - namely trade and provide trading services. This continues today, unabated.

A general view across the harbour, which stretches as far the eye can see.	The majestic Köhlbrand suspension bridge.

The two harbour steams run together before the river reaches Blankenese and then widens out just after Finkenwerder into the Mühlenberger Loch opposite Blankenese.

Despite being 4 hours steaming time inland from the North Sea, the thriving Hamburg Harbour is a deep water port, which is visited by many of the world's largest ships and is an ideal gateway to the markets of northern Europe.

Really we could have devoted a whole web site to the Harbour and we still have a lot more research to do to this part of our web site. Still we shall try to give an impression of the size and importance of this area and thus explain why we are able to see just so many different vessels from the banks of the Elbe at Blankenese.

Please watch this space!

In order that the larger vessels can continue to reach the Hamburg harbour, the river must regularly be dredged, as seen here close by the Blankenese bank, where the deep (and now deeper) channel runs.

From Blankenese, the hustle and bustle of the real harbour activity can only be guessed at by counting the vessels, as they steam out, especially on a Friday evening (it costs more to be in the harbour over the weekend!) and as the incoming vessels are met by pilot cutter and/or a number of tugs to assist them safely through the last narrow channels. The often enormous ships (you have the feeling that a floating town is passing you by!) are taken away from our sight only to be seen a day or two later on their way out to sea again - was that the one we saw coming in on Tuesday evening?

Down in the harbour, there are container areas, warehouses, bridges and a lot more to describe. We are still collecting information and photos, so watch this web space for more information.