The most excellent thing about Hamburg is that in German, its people are called Hamburgers. I’m told they are a lot like Frankfurters, only rounder and somewhat more meaty.

The second most excellent thing about Hamburg is that it is home to the most millionaires in Germany. Now, I’m prone to being impressed by millionaires even when we are talking Aussie dollars, which – let’s face it – are not the best work of economists anywhere. So euro-millionaires are really quite something to me, though naturally not so impressive as those of the sterling variety.

Hamburg is cold and its canals are brown, but it is really a very amiable place. Were it a quarter of its size with better weather and fewer Nazi bunkers and more flowery window boxes in bloom I imagine it could be quite so nice as Venice. After all, it’s got more canals than Venice, and fewer lecherous tourists, or at least more widely dispersed. By the Rathausmarkt there’s even a super row of white colonnades that some Venetian architect or other put up to remind himself of home.

In general, though, Hamburg is holding up well, despite having been manhandled a bit in the past – ruled by the Danes, annexed by Napoleon, besieged by the French and the Russians, burnt to the ground more than once and plagued by the fact that actual beef patties may or may not even come from there.

To redeem itself, though, it’s also the proud home of the world’s oldest nudist colony, established in 1903 for members to air themselves, so to speak, on a city beach. Which is actually a lake. An artifical one, given the dam. Still.