Waterways of Hamburg, Rotterdam & Bruges

If there is magic on the planet, then it is contained in water. On this journey, we discover liquid highways that have flowed for thousands of years through the most desirable destinations.

Hamburg, seated on the Elbe River and straddling the North and Baltic seas, was built atop a group of narrow islands by medieval shipping merchants of the still proud Free and Hanseatic League. With six times as many canals as Venice, Hamburg owes its affluence to water. Today, the most notable network of canals wind through the gentrified neighbourhood of Speicherstadt. Once the largest warren of water-facing warehouses in the world, it is now a thriving UNESCO World Heritage Site teeming with boats, bistros, shops and nightlife. Heavily hyped as the newest darling of achievement is the sensational waterfront Elbphilharmonie concert hall.

Crowned with a wildly beautiful wave-like glass tiara, she lives up to her accolades as the most acoustically advanced concert hall in the world. Landmark architecture in Rotterdam is similarly set beside life-sustaining canals. Once a way to control tidal flooding, the canals, they now thoroughly reflect a lifestyle of marvellous urban living. Curious and cubist, the Kubuswoningen apartments seem to fall like stacked yellow squares into a quaint barge-lined canal. Here the promenade leads to Oudehaven, where the White House, the oldest high-rise building in the Netherlands, towers as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Our quest for canals and culture continues to Zeebrugge that is forever linked by the Baudouin Canal to Bruges. Fairytale, charming, UNESCO, the accolades cascade like the currents. Everything here puts its best face toward the water. The Quay of the Rosary, the most photo-worthy point, was once where salt trading was valuable than gold. Even more revered, however, is the Basilica of the Holy Blood that is reported to have a venerated relic of Christ’s body brought here by the Count of Flanders. Water sustains the dream of the adventurer and there is no place it is more appreciated than aboard this journey.

EJ110 Operated by Explora Journeys