Frankfurt, Germany

The bass from the bar next door last night hadn’t caused me too many sleepless moments, even with one earplug uncorked from my lughole as often happened to me during dormsleep. What did launch me damn near out of bed and on my feet was when someone violently tried the door handle of my room in the early hours. Luckily I had locked it. It was probably just some drunken punter mistaking it for the toilet, but I didn’t discount the very real chance that it was the German Psycho from Aachen on his tireless mission to claim the beds of other travellers.

Hamburg was very industrialised, being heavy on the cranes and light on the Germanic charm, although it did have an Old Quarter and a district of pretty brick warehouses. As well as being synonymous with its docks, Hamburg is also well known for the notorious Reeperbahn, a sprawling, seedy nightlife district. Thinking it safer to visit during the innocent light of morning, I took a walk there clutching a list of gig venues printed from the internet that had been frequented in the early sixties by a band of five young chaps from Liverpool.

My terrible sense of direction managed to locate a couple of the venues where The Silver Beatles (as they were then known) had played, back when Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe were the regular fixtures alongside Lennon, McCartney and Harrison and good old Ringo was little more than an occasional stand-in when Best couldn’t make a gig through illness or injury. Despite my love of the Beatles though, on seeing the Top Ten Club and the famous Star Club I didn’t manage to rekindle the excitement I’d felt when I’d first visited The Cavern in Liverpool several years back.

After lunch I found a bit of sparkle in the alternative culture Schanzenviertel packed with interesting independent shops and bars, but having not been completely converted to the ways of Hamburg I decided to return to the impressive train station to press on a long train journey southwards to Frankfurt, familiar territory for me, being the largest city near to Mainz and a regular destination for me when I lived in Germany. I kept with the pattern of arriving late at night, but luckily the hostel I’d picked out – another YHA – had plenty of space and assigned me a colourful-smelling dorm of snoring backpackers in which to spend the night.