Nautical Knots and Locks of Love in Hamburg, Germany

Hamburg is Germany’s northerly darling that’s a gateway to the world as a major international port. It accesses the North Sea via the Elbe River and rivals Venice with its web of canals and waterways. More than 15,000 ships from over 100 countries pass through Hamburg each year. The city-state also has a lake (Alster, divided into inner and outer parts), massive shipping and ship building industries, and maritime culture from water “buses” to a weekly fish market. This explains why Hamburg is Germany’s second most populated city after Berlin and has more consulates than almost any city in the world.