Hamburg's Landungsbrücken, or Landing Bridges, have shuttled passengers across the Elbe since 1839, when steam power was considered faintly reckless. Officials worried coal-fired steamboats might set fire to sail ships moored nearer the city, so the terminal was banished to the outskirts, beyond the old city walls. At its Edwardian peak the port handled eighty thousand passengers daily, bound for towns along the Elbe, its southern bank, or islands off in the North Sea.

The clock tower crowning the bridges, added in 1907, does more than tell the time in all four directions. Beneath its face sits a tide gauge, crucial in a city that lies 117 kilometres inland yet still rises and falls with the tide.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours use the Landungsbrücken as the starting point for a walk toward the Elbphilharmonie. They trace Hamburg's working harbour and steam-age caution about fire into the concert hall's glass and steel.