Travel Guide Glückstadt

The small town of Glückstadt, which has preserved some beautiful relics of its past, is a nice excursion down the Elbe River to the estuary. This small town (about 11,500 inhabitants) would not have you believe that it was once a serious competitor to Hamburg. It was founded ex nihilo in 1617 by the Danish king Christian IV, at a time when his kingdom was trying to extend its hegemony in northern Germany and thus to stifle Hamburg economically. It was in the 18th century that it reached its peak, thanks to the sugar and salt trade, as well as the whale hunt around Greenland (also Danish). But as Danish political power faded and the city's seafront silted up, competition with Hamburg and Altona was no longer tenable. The city did not seize the opportunity of industrial development and, annexed to Germany, remained a pretty little provincial town.