3 Best Sights in Schleswig-Holstein and the Baltic Coast, Germany

Almost 5 million bricks went into the construction of this marvelous building at the heart of the Kontorhausviertel, a collection of handsome office buildings that were built in the 1920–40s and now, together with the nearby Speicherstadt, form a UNESCO World Heritage site. Built in a brick expressionist style in 1924 for expat Brit Henry Brarens Sloman, who emigrated to Chile from Hamburg as a young man, made a considerable fortune trading saltpeter and returned to the city to make his mark, the Chilehaus stands 10 stories high and its impressive, jutting tip resembles the prow of a ship. Still housing business offices, it also counts a number of small cafés, shops, and a bar as residents, and is well worth a visit, particularly at night when illuminated.

The grocers' guild built this tightly packed group of courtyard houses between 1620 and 1626 for members' widows. The half-timber, two-story dwellings, with unusual twisted chimneys and decorative brick facades, were restored in the 1970s. A visit inside the Kramer-Witwen-Wohnung—part of the Museum of Hamburg History—gives you a sense of what life was like in these 17th-century dwellings.