The Treppenviertel — Stair Quarter — is a hillside neighbourhood in Blankenese, Hamburg, built on a steep bluff above the Elbe. The geography is unusual for northern Germany: a hill of approximately 75 metres, densely built with villas, cottages, and former fishermen's houses, connected by a network of more than five hundred public stairs rather than through roads. The result is a district that must be navigated on foot and at the pace that stairs impose. The views across the Elbe — to the south bank, to the container ships moving slowly upstream — are best from the upper streets in the late morning. The architecture covers three centuries of residential building in Hamburg: the oldest houses near the water, the larger villas rising as prosperity did with each generation uphill.
Blankenese, Hamburg, Germany