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There's nothing like rock 'n roll on a sabbath dawn to blow away those midwinter blues. And there's certainly nothing like rock 'n roll in a Fishmarket, complete with pre-dawn buffet of smoked eel washed down with the first pilsener of the day, all consumed before 7am on a Sunday morn. A strange kind of communion, indeed.

If this was Buckie or Peterhead you might be able to make a case for such fishy high jinks perhaps once or twice a year, although there'd be stern words about transgression of the Lord's Day. But this is Hamburg, Germany, whose Fishmarket takes place every Sunday of the year within hailing distance of the Reeperbahn, Hamburg's mile of sin. It may not get Almighty approval, but it is a cracking way of finishing off a weekend.

Hamburg is one of Germany's most under-rated, but quietly successful, city destinations, and the closest to the UK. In fact this is supposed to be the most British of German cities, and one of the reasons it doesn't make more of its attractions - it has recently overtaken Budapest to become 12th most popular citybreak in Europe - is its in-built reserve. A tendency in the local character to hold oneself back that is more British than the British themselves.

This is, after all, the city whose smart set wears pearls, cravates and corduroys, and whose status car is a Jaguar, not a Mercedes Benz. As the local saying goes, 'if it rains in London, the people of Hamburg put their umbrellas up'.

Typically rainy weather is not Hamburg's only water feature. The downtown area surrounds two connected lakes, the inner and outer Alster. There are scudding sailboats and rowing boats on the outer, and a base for all-year-round lake and waterway cruisers on the inner. That base stands opposite the main shopping district, which now has a massive new mall in the form of the Europa Passage, supposedly the biggest downtown shopping centre in Europe, and one which makes a particular virtue out of European design.

Not far away is another new development on a far bigger scale. HafenCity is a mixture of cultural, residential and corporate buildings being created amongst immense old brick warehouses on the waterside, a sort of inner-city Leith. It is expanding Hamburg's downtown area by 40 percent, and we'll all be hearing about it a lot more in future years, largely because of a concert hall called the Elbe Philharmonic, which is being built in the shape of a giant glass wave on top of a huge brick warehouse. The end result will do for Hamburg what Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum did for Bilbao.

Meanwhile the biggest draw in the old warehouses is an unlikely attraction called Miniature Wonderland, which bills itself as the world's largest model railway. In fact both name and billing don't do it justice. Its miniaturised landscapes of Hamburg, Germany and much of the rest of the world have been created with an imagination and an attention to detail that I have yet to see anywhere else. Essentially, the trains are just an excuse for an extravaganza of story-telling, where the beauty is in the quirky detail. Blink and you'll miss the couple making love in the middle of a field of sunflowers. Blink again and you'll miss another couple making out in the Alps, this time being photographed by a voyeur while another man makes away with their underclothes. Etc, etc.

Models in a state of undress are not uncommon in Hamburg. Across the centre of town from HafenCity is St Pauli, whose main street is the Reeperbahn, Hamburg's red-light district. These days the tourist board prefers the description 'former red-light district', and places the emphasis on all the musicals and cabarets along its length. Certainly you can come to see Mamma Mia here if you want, but there's a lot more on show along the Reeperbahn than just Abba and discos, and most of it is not family fare. It is not, however, a hostile environment, and while downtown Hamburg empties at night, there's a real feeling of a community living around the Reeperbahn, with traditional bars, ethnic minority corner shops, piercing studios and punk boutiques, much of it open all night.

The Reeperbahn originally came into existence to serve the city's dominant physical characteristic, its port. These days container-ship turnaround is too quick for crew-members to spend much time at the table-dancing, but big ships still move in stately fashion right through the heart of the city along the river Elbe.

It's only two stops on the underground from the Reeperbahn to the waterside at Landungsbrucken, the most accessible set of public pontoons, set against a backdrop of dock cranes posing rhetorical questions against the sky. From here there are regular riverbus services up and down river and dozens of tour boats waiting to show you the inner reaches of the port.

On board those tours, the commentary is aimed at those who are likely to be round-eyed in wonderment at the size of ships, the speed of container handling and the exotic list of destinations served. However my guide did have a dry sense of humour which livened up the facts and figures. His boat's bar had on offer, he said 'aqua miserable' and coffee 'so weak it could barely crawl into the cup'. He also pointed out a large receiving shed for exotic fruit. 'That's where they put the bends in our bananas', he said.

The first major landmark on all harbour tours is the place where those in the know end their weekend: the former fish auction hall on the quayside. This multi-galleried, cantilevered, iron and glass cathedral is at the heart of the Sunday morning Fishmarket.

Despite its name, fish play only a walk-on part in the market proceedings. Amongst the stalls around the hall it is the traders who are the big attraction, including the likes of Nudel Olli (speciality stuffing bags with pasta), Banana Fred (speciality hurling fruit) and Puten Peter (speciality: anything to do with chickens), all with big audiences and a constant patter which is heavily laced with salty humour. Some of them are celebrities, particularly Eely Dieter (speciality: hurling abuse) whose early-morning wit has earned him a lucrative TV career.

But the main attraction is inside the cathedral-like hall itself, where punters are queuing for pilsener at the bars instead of wine at the altar rail. Here, a congregation of several hundred are seated along trestle table pews that run the length of the nave, quaffing chilled litres. Above them, on the side galleries, caterers offer fish brunches with all you can eat for 15 Euros.

The rock 'n roll comes from either end of the nave. At one end the lead singer of the Thunderbirds, in braces and beard and with the sweat pouring off him, preaches Teenager in Love to blurry up-all-nighters whose dancing belongs to another planet. And when he's run out of steam the lights go up at the other end, where disco band Miss Smith are waiting with their rendition of C'mon Baby Light My Fire.

Unlike most such events, which fade towards the end, the Fishmarket gathers momentum as the dawn light starts filtering through the upper windows. Then, almost on the stroke of 10am, the ball is over. The tannoy speaks, the stalls close and the exhausted Cinderellas soak away into the sidestreets, clutching baskets of fruit and packets of greasy eels they had never really wanted, with the whole of Sunday still stretched out before them.

And after you've got up at 6am to drink, dance and be abused by an eel-monger, what the hell do you do for the rest of the day?