Deichstrasse is the only intact 17th- and 18th-century merchants' street left in central Hamburg — a single line of narrow gabled houses backing onto the Nikolaifleet canal, the original waterway of the medieval port. The Great Fire of Hamburg started here on the night of 5 May 1842 in a tobacco-roller's workshop and went on to consume a third of the inner city; the Deichstrasse itself, ironically, survived the fire largely intact.
The houses are now mostly restaurants — Zum Brandanfang ("To the Start of the Fire") at number 25 is named after the event, and serves traditional north-German cooking. The narrow alleys (Fleetgänge) running between the houses down to the canal are open to walkers and let you see the rear façades, which jut out over the water on wooden brackets.