Andy, Ian and I are off to Hamburg for five days from Thursday. I've been searching the web for facts about the place, and have come across the following:

My favourite site has to be Oleg Arin's Hamburg without hamburgers, but with queers and Natashas. Oleg is a Russian with an interesting world-view:

On the very first evening, strolling in a random street, we encountered an equally startling spectacle: mysterious looks and poses of same-sex couples. Myself, I don’t understand this peculiar kind of relationship (even Socrates can’t convince me), but in West Germany and Western nations in general this thing has become normal. Unattractive Frauen, devoid of feminine charm – I mean there are even morphological changes of their features – march in the streets looking businesslike in face and body. I guess that men have no choice but to develop feelings for one another.

Steindamm: a street consisting of nothing but sex-shops where the display windows feature certain enticing body parts. My wife felt revulsion for some reason, and we retreated from that street as well, condemning ourselves mentally for our hypocrisy and unculturedness.

One attraction I hope we have the guts to try is Dialogue In The Dark - a tour through a large warehouse in pitch black darkness, guided only by a blind person:

In the seven rooms ahead you will dive into the total darkness of the blind, and together with them you will discover the world of smells and noises, of touch and the spoken word. You have to entrust yourself to a total stranger whom you can only get to know through conversation and touch. Nevertheless you will have to rely completely upon his abilities - which you haven't got - to find his way through the darkness. You will find out how important ears, nose, taste, speech and finger tips become the moment vision, our most important sense, lets us down.

An oft-repeated stat is that Hamburg has more bridges than Venice and Amsterdam combined, 2,428 of them, in fact (Venice has a mere 450). Of course, another thing Hamburg has in common with Amsterdam is its red light district, and I'm sure the three of us will wander wide-eyed around the Reeperbahn. Fortunately, our hotel is slap-bang [probably literally, if I know Andy] in the middle of the city's gay centre, St Georg.

Expect a full report-back next week. If you have any tips, please let me know.