Hamburg
Scouse icon John Lennon once said: "I was born in Liverpool, but I grew up in Hamburg." It's taken the northern German city a long time to wake up to the opportunity offered by the city's role in the history of The Beatles. It has now. The Beatlemania Museum, the first major permanent exhibition in Hamburg dedicated to the Fab Four, opened this year in a five-storey building previously occupied by a museum devoted to erotic art.
Music promoters FKP Scorpio spent a few years getting Beatlemania exactly right, making it not just "a Beatles museum in Hamburg" but an interactive journey through one of the most exciting decades of modern times.
In July 1960, the group arrived by ship from Liverpool for a contract at the Indra Club, Grosse Freiheit, near the Reeperbahn in the St Pauli district.
In the next three years, they played hundreds of gigs in rowdy venues such as the Kaiserkeller and Star Club.
These gruelling six-hour sets – sometimes playing for up to 48 consecutive nights – honed the Beatles' talents and even gave them their mop-top look.
Beatlemania isn't hard to find. Poking out from above the trees at the entrance is a huge Yellow Submarine.
Inside, five themed floors begin with the band's arrival in Hamburg and recount the full story until the break-up year of 1970.
Each room is pleasingly imaginative.
The Sgt Pepper room has a huge copy of the album cover where you stand in one of the rows to get your photograph taken in a work of art.
The Yellow Submarine room, meanwhile, includes periscopes, portholes and submarine sounds.
My favourite rooms were Hamburg ones. You enter a 60s Reeperbahn and pass the windows of clubs full of period memorabilia.
The museum is not far from the entrance to Grosse Freiheit, where there is another new shrine to the band, the Beatles-Platz – a granite, record-shaped plaza with life-size statues of the group, including original member, "fifth Beatle" Stuart Sutcliffe.
Hamburg still has a thriving music scene – and you can even catch bands at the fish market.
Early on a Sunday morning, the Fish Auction Hall rocks to the rafters as a covers band belts out crowd pleasers by Johnny Cash and The Kinks.
The audience is made up of savvy shoppers who are either extraordinarily early-risers or dirty stop-outs straight from all-night sessions in Reeperbahn clubs.
The market has been around since 1703, and still offers bargains such as carrier bags of fresh fish for 10 euros, shopping baskets of fruit and vegetables for nine euros and enough plants to fill a trendy small office for 20 euros.
Music buffs gather by 5am, when the music starts, and they order buffet breakfasts to watch bands playing until midday.
The revival of the hall, also in the lively St Pauli area, is symbolic of the transformation of Germany's second city. Hamburg is at the centre of growing trade with China and Eastern Europe, and its new HafenCity project brings hundreds of jobs to a huge site in the historic Speicherstadt (warehouse) district.
HafenCity Hamburg will increase the city centre area by 40% by 2025. Lucky them.
The city centre already had several fine shopping areas, including Stadthausbrucke, on the waterfront near the City Hall, and the Jungfernstieg promenade with internationally-known names.
There's also the Schanzen and Karolinenviertel districts. Both are young up-and-coming areas, reminding me of Camden and Notting Hill. The shops were quirky and there were bargains to be found.
Hamburg is a beautiful city to walk around, too. My favourite followed the Inner Alster river, and I stood on Lombard Bridge to look at City Hall, surrounded by classic 19th-century buildings with medieval spires towering over them.
We ended our visit with a traditional harbour tour and a trip to the new International Maritime Museum.
Housed in one of Hamburg's oldest and largest red-brick warehouses, it celebrates the history of boats dating from 500BC to modern cruise ships.
Info
Laura Wurzal was a guest of Hamburg Tourism, see below, Hamburg Marketing and Hamburg Airport, and stayed at the Steigenberger Hotel Hamburg, with three nights' B&B costing £85-130. Reservations on 00800 784 68357.
British Airways Holidays offer three nights' room-only at four-star Renaissance Hotel from £333 in November, including return flights ex-Heathrow. Connecting flights ex-Manchester/Glasgow from £82 return.
Reservations: 0844 493 0758 and:
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