3 Best Sights in Hamburg, Germany

This museum and family-research center tells the story of European emigration to the United States and elsewhere. The complex on the Elbe island Veddel, completed in 1901, was built by the HAPAG shipping line for its passengers and named after Alfred Ballin, its then general director. To accommodate visitors for several days or months, BallinStadt featured a hospital, church, music hall, housing, and hotels. For approximately 5 million European emigrants, Hamburg was the "Gateway to the World" between 1850 and 1939. Their experience comes to life with artifacts, interactive displays, detailed reproductions of the buildings (all but one was demolished), as well as firsthand accounts of oppression in Europe, life in the "city," conditions during the 60-day ocean crossing, and life in their new home. The main draw is the research booths, where you can search the complete passenger lists of all ships that left the harbor.  Research assistants are available to help locate and track your ancestors.

Burned down during the air raids of World War II, the ruins of the neo-Gothic church serve as a memorial for the victims of war and persecution from 1933 to 1945. The museum features an exhibition on the air raids and the destruction of Hamburg and other European cities. A glass elevator on the outside of the building takes visitors 250 feet up to the steeple, which offers magnificent views of the surrounding historic streets.

An excursion to this little museum, inside an original 19th-century warehouse, gives you a sense of the trade that flowed through the Speicherstadt in its heyday. Sacks of coffee and spices, chests of tea, and scales and mills are scattered throughout the museum, and there is information detailing the history and architecture of the district, as well as historical photographs and diagrams.