At the end of a ride from the east, the road drops into Hamburg's old industrial quarters, and the city seems to gather itself in. Rothenburgsort and Hammerbrook are the districts around the point, and they carry a darker history than most. In July 1943, during the bombing of the city, a firestorm swept through these streets, killing tens of thousands and flattening whole neighbourhoods. Rebuilding came in the plain, practical style of the 1950s, and little of the older city survives. A few ruined walls and one or two memorial plaques remain.
Just to the west lies the HafenCity, one of the largest urban redevelopment projects in Europe, where old warehouses and new glass blocks sit side by side along the harbour. The Elbphilharmonie, the concert hall opened in 2017 on top of an old brick warehouse, is the showpiece, and from its public plaza you can look across the whole port. The Speicherstadt, the red-brick warehouse district, was listed by UNESCO in 2015 and is at its best in the evening, when the lights come on and are reflected in the canals.
The ride in is a mixture of dike road and urban motorway. After the open marshes and the quiet of the Vier- und Marschlande, the last stretch is tight and busy, with bridges, ramps, tunnel mouths and a lot of trucks. Take it slowly, keep your lane and watch the signs, because it is easy to take the wrong exit and end up in the port. Weekday evenings are heavy, and Sundays are far easier.
At twenty metres above sea level, the point is on the edge of the old floodplain, near the Elbe's bridges. Fuel is easily found, with stations along the main roads and bigger supermarkets nearby. Park near the harbour and walk for twenty minutes, because the city's best view is on foot. The ships sound their horns as they come and go, the gulls cry, and the day winds down to the smell of salt water and diesel.