Here, there and everywhere

The world's greatest pop band learned their licks in the backstreet clubs of a German seaport, some of which are still going strong

What was it like growing up in Liverpool, a reporter once asked John Lennon. "I didn't grow up in Liverpool," Lennon replied. "I grew up in Hamburg."

The Beatles came from Liverpool, but they became a grown-up band in Hamburg, and 40 years after their German sabbatical, you can still recreate your own magical mystery tour around the Teutonic city where the world's greatest pop group came of age.

Hamburg and Liverpool used to have a lot in common. They even share the same latitude. Transatlantic trade gave both these great seaports a rugged cosmopolitan character, but since the second world war, their respective fortunes have dramatically diverged. Liverpool symbolised Britain's economic decline, while Hamburg became a symbol of Deutschland's industrial revival. Today, it's one of Europe's richest cities, traditionally the capital of Germany's mass media, and its old waterfront wharfs and warehouses have been converted into affluent shops and restaurants.

An RAF firestorm, which killed more people in one night than the entire Blitz in Britain, also destroyed much of Hamburg's historic housing, but whatever Hamburg lacks in architecture, it makes up for in location. The Alster, the enormous lake at the centre of the city, is far more beautiful than any building, and the canals that criss-cross the old town preserve the atmosphere, if not the fabric, of this Hanseatic city state.

When The Beatles arrived in 1960, Hamburg's post-war renaissance was just beginning, yet the prefab five weren't bound for Hamburg's chic city centre, but the dockland enclave of St Pauli -- not so much Hamburg's Albert Dock, more like the slums of Bootle.

The first place they played was the Indra on Grosse Freiheit, a notorious sidestreet that runs off the Reeperbahn, Hamburg's infamous red-light boulevard. This tiny backstreet club is still going strong today. After two months of gigging, five hours every night for a few quid each, local promoter Bruno Koschmider promoted them to his flagship club, the Kaiserkeller, further down the Grosse Freiheit, nearer the bright lights of the Reeperbahn. Still in their original line up -- John, Paul and George on guitars, Pete Best on drums and Stuart Sutcliffe on bass -- The Beatles shared the bill with another British band, Rory Storm & The Hurricanes, whose drummer was a Liverpudlian called Ringo Starr. The Kaiserkeller still stages gigs today. Recent bands include Soft Cell and The Waterboys. There's a stylish bar upstairs, but The Beatles spent more time across the street at Gretel & Alfons, a cosy restaurant quite unlike the sex shops and strip clubs that surround it. Paul McCartney returned here in 1989, to repay his bar bill, with interest.

A few doors away is the site of the Star Club, where The Beatles shared a stage with fellow Scousers Gerry & The Pacemakers and US imports such as Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. Unfortunately, it burnt down in 1983, but there's a plaque outside, commemorating Star Club legends such as Gene Vincent and Jimmy Hendrix. Aptly, it is shaped like a gravestone.

The Star Club was Hamburg's most famous venue, but the club where The Beatles really found their feet was the Top Ten, around the corner. In this Reeperbahn basement, which once housed a subterranean circus, they became the backing band for the English singer Tony Sheridan, with whom they cut their first record, for Polydor, at the Friedrich Ebert Halle, over the river in Harburg, Hamburg's Birkenhead. Today, the Top Ten is a disco, but The Beatles legend lives on.

You can chart The Beatles' rise and rise in the places where they stayed. Their first home from home was the Bambi cinema, a broken bottle's throw from the Kaiserkeller, where they shared two rooms between the five of them, and used the cinema toilet as their bathroom. When they left the Bambi for better lodgings in an attic above the Top Ten, they accidentally started a small fire when they lit a match to find their way out, and Bruno Koschmider accused them of arson. Pete and Paul were arrested and banged up in the cells at the Davidwache police station, and then they were deported.

By the time The Beatles returned to Hamburg to play the Star Club, they were big enough to warrant hotel rooms, first at the Germania, and then at the Pacific Hotel. Both hotels are still running. Rooms at the Germania range from £10 to £40. Ensuite doubles at the Pacific cost £50 a night. Both hotels are a short walk away from Heiligengeistfeld (Holy Ghost Field), where Astrid Kirchherr, Stuart Sutcliffe's German girlfriend, took the famous fairground photos that defined their new image. Kirchherr gave them their collarless jackets and, crucially, their mop top haircuts.

A more central, yet similarly sumptuous base is the Atlantic, a handsome fin de siècle hotel beside the Alster. Sutcliffe gigged here with a local band called The Bats a few months before he died. Thirty years later, Paul stayed here when he returned for the European premiere of his tour film, Get Back, at the nearby Passage cinema, in Monckebergstrasse, Hamburg's main shopping street.

The Beatles spent Sunday mornings at the Fischmarkt, Hamburg's oldest market, beside the Elbe, the river that runs from Dresden through Hamburg and out into the North Sea. Then as now, it's not just a fish market, but a flea market, too, and although you can buy fresh fish here, you can buy almost anything else here. It opens at dawn (5am in summer, 7am in winter) and The Beatles would go straight there after they finished their Saturday night gig.

One morning, John bought a pig here, which he christened Bruno, after his boss at the Kaiserkeller, and chased it around the market, causing such a commotion that someone called the police. This time The Beatles weren't deported, but within the year they returned to Liverpool of their own accord, and recorded their first single. Sadly, Bruno didn't live to hear Love Me Do. He met a local butcher called Heinz and became The Beatles Sunday lunch.

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