It isn’t until you have come to the harbor that you have truly arrived in Hamburg. Nowhere is the city's distinctiveness more evident than here. The heady smells of the Elbe and diesel pervade as small launches laden with tourists thread their way between gigantic ocean-going vessels. Tugs pilot a cruise liner into the harbor, while behind them a flock of gulls wheel and screech…

If the sight of the harbor doesn't move you, nothing will. Wanderlust, freedom and longing are feelings that have been connected to the Hamburg Harbor since time began. As has a yearning for liberty as well: at the beginning of the 20th century Hamburg was one of the most important harbors for Europeans looking to emigrate. Between 1850 and 1939 a total of five million of them began their journey to a new life in the “New World” from here. This is a slice of harbor history that visitors have been able to experience since 2007 at the “Port of Dreams - Auswandererwelt BallinStadt” exhibition.

Around 13,000 ocean-going ships from all over the world call in every year at Europe's second-largest harbor. Her Majesty also graces the scene several times a year: when the Queen Mary II, the world's longest cruise liner, visits Hamburg Harbor, hundreds of thousands of sightseers line the banks of the Elbe. But there is something to see and experience everywhere here: from the historic Speicherstadt and Landungsbrücken, to the Fish Market all the way to Altenwerder, the world's most modern container terminal.

What from the other side of the Elbe looks like a piece of romantic industrial history shimmering in the evening sun is in fact a gigantic high-tech plant that works day and night. At night, the scene is bathed in an orange light, which is quite a sight to see. Controlled by computers, the world's largest container bridges magically move to and fro. Almost entirely automatically, containers are loaded from ships to driverless trucks and railways cars.

The show is over within a few hours when all of the ships have been unloaded. The goods then travel through the gateway – out into the world to their destinations in far-flung countries in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe, as well as to the Americas and Asia…