The upper bridge
Trains below, the glazed vault above.
Alchemist-hp (talk) — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Raimond Spekking — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Smiley.toerist — CC BY-SA 4.0 · L-BBE — CC BY 3.0
Hamburg's central station is the busiest railway station in Germany and the second busiest in Europe, with around half a million passengers a day. But what makes it worth looking at is not the numbers — it is the roof: a single steel and glass vault seventy-three metres wide covering all the platforms with no intermediate columns. It was completed in 1906, and that span was a bold engineering achievement at the time — the decision to cover the platforms in one bay rather than with rows of columns was expensive and difficult, but it produced an open interior unlike the stations of its era. Stand on the upper bridge and you see the trains below and the glazed vault above in a single view. The building survived the 1943 bombing with limited damage and is among the few large structures of its period still standing in the city centre. Practically it is also where everything starts: city, regional and long-distance trains, and steps from the Monckebergstrasse shopping street and the Alster lake.
Trains below, the glazed vault above.
A bold engineering feat for its time.
Hachmannplatz 16, 20099 Hamburg
Museum of Art and IndustryHamburg's Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe is a museum of design and applied art, fo2 minutes walk4.4
Hamburger KunsthalleThe Kunsthalle is one of Germany's largest art museums, its collection spanning 4 minutes walk4.7
Zaubermuseum BellachiniA small museum of stage magic in Hamburg, named after Bellachini, a German magic5 minutes walk4.4
St James' ChurchSt James' is one of Hamburg's five principal churches, its origins reaching back6 minutes walk4.5
ChocoversumChocoversum is a chocolate museum in central Hamburg, but it does not work like 7 minutes walk4.5A few minutes only, and you will likely be there anyway. Go up to the bridge that crosses above the platforms and look both ways — that is all it takes to see what distinguishes it architecturally. It is not a planned destination, but it rewards looking up rather than hurrying through.