There are several bus tours, departing from Landungsbrücken or at the rear of the main railway station, Hauptbahnhof. You can take a hop-on hop-off tour or a non-stopping one-hour or two-hour tour (the latter is too much for most visitors). Look for the Stadt Rundfahrt/Hamburger Hummelbahn sign (the name of the company). It operates red double-decker buses year round and a little land-train known as the Hummelbahn (April to October) (tel: (040) 792 8979; website: www.hummelbahn.de).

In addition to the harbour tour outlined in Key Attractions, boats also tour the canals of the Speicherstadt and some combine the harbour and canals. The only difficulty is that English-language commentaries are mostly confined to group bookings. Likewise, many walking tours (covering the city centre, St Pauli by day and by night, the Speicherstadt, Beatles-themed tours and so on) are available only if you have made a group booking.

An alternative is to hire a hand-held GPS audio-visual city guide which will guide you unerringly along three pre-planned routes. You can rent this from the main tourist office. For more details on tours see www.hamburg-tourism.de (click on Sightseeing, then Themes & Tours).