My wife and I trained from Amsterdam to Copenhagen and decided to break our trip and spend 2 nights in Hamburg staying at the luxurious Fairmont Vier Jahreszeiten Hotel in the heart of Hamburg. Having never visited before, we were delighted with the experience and encourage others to visit this fascinating city. Hamburg claims more bridges than any other city in the world and has countless waterways being Germany’s largest port city and situated on the Elbe River, approximately 100 km upstream from the mouth of Elbe River on the North Sea. The city offers countless restaurants, most with large outdoor seating areas. Of course, we had to visit and play Hamburger Falkenstein Golf Club, Germany’s # 1 golf course and an original Harry Colt design.

We found the course in excellent condition and with a wide assortment of golf holes running in different directions, short and long par fours and 3 great par threes. The course does not have a bad hole with many elevated tees and requirements to hit blind shots over hills and to elevated greens. It is also a great course for the ladies with tees set up such that the ladies face carries off most tees but not of an unreasonable length (contrast with the many great courses such as Royal County Down which are simply lady golfer unfriendly in terms of the siting of tees). Having just played 8 of the top 9 courses in Netherlands, had this course been located in Netherlands, it would comfortable fit within the top 10 – which is a high compliment given the standard of the classic Netherland golf courses. In short, the course is a pleasure to play and most, I suspect, would welcome swapping for their home golf course. The club rooms are pleasant with fine outdoor dining areas and excellent practice facilities. A course not to be missed if passing through Hamburg and good value for the Euro 120 pp green fees. Notwithstanding the many hills, we found it an easy walk (with complimentary pull trollies). Contrary to some of the comments by other reviewers, we did not see any aspect of the course which needs changing. The course would look absolutely stunning if the heather was in full bloom.