Mönckebergstraße

The Mönckebergstraße, known to locals simply as the 'Mö', is Hamburg's traditional shopping street and the shortest line between two things every visitor sees: the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) at one end and the Rathausmarkt, the city hall square, at the other. It runs dead straight for roughly 3,000 feet and opened in 1911 as a grand commercial boulevard, named for the mayor of the day, Johann Georg Mönckeberg. Department stores, big chains and specialty shops still line it end to end, while the architecture keeps things interesting: the brick Levantehaus and the twin domed towers of the former Barkhof give the street its profile, and two church anchors, the Petrikirche and St. Jacobi, break up the retail. For a first-time visitor the Mö is less a destination than the city's main artery. Walk it once and you have oriented yourself. From it, the Jungfernstieg promenade, the Binnenalster lake and the Kontorhausviertel with the Chilehaus are each only a few minutes away on foot, which makes it a natural spine for a downtown afternoon. Getting there: the U-Bahn line U3 stops at Mönckebergstraße itself, and the U1 and U3 plus every S-Bahn line serve Hauptbahnhof and Jungfernstieg. The street runs precisely between those two, so you can start at either end and walk the whole thing in about 15 minutes.