Hamburg is big, so you might consider where you'll be spending your time before you decide where to stay. Booking ahead is a good idea any time of year and is essential on weekends, during festivals and throughout summer.
Imagine yourself aboard a luxury ocean liner in this grand 252-room hotel, which opens onto Holzdamm. Built in 1909 for luxury-liner passengers departing for America, it has ornate stairwells, wide hallways and subtle maritime touches.
The riverside Louis C. Jacob is a connoisseur's hotel. The oldest wing dates back to the 18th century and features richly traditional public rooms and bedrooms. Newer wings embrace a more modern tone, while remaining equally luxurious.
A stylish alternative to the city centre’s chain hotels, this Matteo Thun–designed stunner is built around a soaring prism-shaped central atrium. Suites feature vividly coloured free-standing bath-tubs.
A corrugated metal exterior fronts lots of blond wood in this airy, modern 128-room hotel less than five minutes’ walk from the Berliner Tor U-Bahn/S-Bahn station.
Entering the Park Hyatt Hamburg is like stepping into another dimension. It's almost literally sandwiched inside a typical Hamburg clinker-brick Kontorhaus (merchant's building), with huge horizontal expanses and relatively low ceilings.
Even those who've seen a few design hotels in their time will be impressed by East. The walls, lamps and huge pillars of this hotel's public areas emulate organic forms - droplets, flowers, trees - giving it a warm, rich and enveloping feel.
The 'chic' design here is pretty ho-hum formulaic, but the restaurant's front-row lake views are mesmerising, and the beds famously comfortable.
Through an elegant stained-glass lobby with a caged wrought-iron lift, accommodation at this historic lakeside hotel blends original herringbone floors with contemporary furnishings and mod cons.
Sparing splashes of colour brighten its restaurant, bars and 327 streamlined rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows, most with harbour views.
Privately owned Austrian chain Arcotel has arrived in Hamburg in style at this snazzy hotel.
Location, location, location. This privately owned behemoth of a hotel (353 rooms, all with high-speed internet) looms over the heart of Hamburg’s harbour from a small hill.
This delightful Pension (B&B) inside a historic 1790 town house is an extension of its welcoming owner’s personality, an artist whose paintings decorate the walls of his ‘gallery of dreams’.
This venerable hotel's fame stretches well beyond the shores of the Inner Alster lake, which it overlooks. With bags of history, it hasn't forgotten to move with the times.
Entered via a bright cafe, this hostel-cum-hotel includes a cool, subterranean maritime-themed lounge containing a small kitchenette, a sunny outdoor terrace, table football, and light-filled rooms (some with private bathrooms) with good-sized lo.
Artistic murals – from green stripes to golden Buddhas – adorn this chilled-out pad in the happening Schanzenviertel. Airy dorms and private rooms house 60 proper beds (no bunks), though all share bathrooms.
On a hill loftily overlooking Hamburg Harbour and the Elbe river, its location is clearly this huge, modern hostel's most appealing feature.
