Hamburg

Germany's mighty port has been a powerhouse of the north for centuries. Hamburg's growth as a shipbuilding centre added industrial muscle to its trading wealth, and then it became a hub for emigration to America.

World War II brought terrible bombing. But Hamburg's giant port remains, along with its heritage-listed red-brick warehouses known as the Speicherstadt. Its great Protestant churches , known as Hauptkirchen, are of outstanding significance, along with the surviving tower known as Mahnmal St Nikolai.

Hamburg also has Germany's exciting opera house, the Elbphilharmonie, and one of the world's famous fish markets, a breakfast stop for nightowls on the Reeperbahn.