The Deichstrasse is the only surviving streetscape from 17th-century Hamburg - a row of narrow merchant homes and warehouses that backed on to the Nikolaifleet canal. In this bustling port city, where half the burghers were from elsewhere, traders shipped in sugar and spices, as well as paper to feed the city's hungry presses. A Deichstrasse house has been partially reconstucted inside the Museum of Hamburg History. Find out more in Johann's 'City of News' audio trail.

Against the odds, the spire of St Nicholas, the Nikolaikirche to locals, survived the bombings of WWII. Now a memorial, in the 1600s St Nicholas was one of the city's five big Lutheran churches. It was more than a house of prayer, it was a hub of rumour and news. Preachers not only commented on politics and current affairs, traders at bookstalls inside the church hawked cheap pamphlets of all kinds. Find out more in Johann's 'City of News' audio trail.

In the 1600s Hamburg's newspapers were read and discussed throughout German-speaking Europe. Printers such as Thomas von Wiering, who published the bi-weekly ‘Relations-Courier’ and ran news stalls across the city, pumped out thousands of pamphlets. The Hamburg history museum, on the site of a bastion of the old city walls, is the only place in town you'll find a hand press, the early modern tech behind Hamburg's fame for the printed word. Find out more in Johann's 'City of News' audio trail.

Germany's first opera house opened its doors in Goosemarket in 1678 and ran for a century. An instant success, people piled in for the thrice-weekly shows, not only to hear the latest operatic works, but to trade gossip and news. The opera was not without its critics. Preachers railed against devilish theatre, while city bosses fretted about subversion. During the political crisis of 1686 they closed the opera for a year. Find out more in Johann's 'City of News' audio trail.

If you walked into New Market in the mid 1600s you would have been assailed by the voices of street singers and hawkers of cheap print. New Market was the place Hamburgers came to buy the latest local and German newspapers. More than one-fifth of the population, 15,000 people, were regular readers. You could hear all about it in New Market too: some stalls offered the chance to hear newspapers read aloud, for half price. Find out more in Johann's 'City of News' audio trail.

Crossing the Trostbruecke in the 1600s brought you to the heart of political power, the town hall and trial courts, destroyed by fire in 1842. This was where people heard official news: edicts and judicial verdicts, such as the death sentence against the two men driving 1686's political crisis. It was also where city leaders looked to censor opinion: banned pamphlets were regularly burned on a pillory called the 'dishonourable block'. Find out more in Johann's 'City of News' audio trail.

On today's Dornbusch you might grab coffee at this bakery. In the 17th century you'd be heading to the streetcorner across the road, to what was once the site of Eimbeck's House, the city's first coffeeshop. In a trend sweeping Europe, Eimbeck's was selling the exotic intoxicant by 1668. At least for men, stopping at coffeehouses for a drink and smoke, and to read and discuss the papers on sale there, fast became part of Hamburg public life. Find out more in Johann's 'City of News' audio trail.