Some time early in 2015, I sat down with an atlas and marked all the cities in Germany that I hadn’t already seen but wanted to see. I also threw in Amsterdam, Bruges and Brussels for good measure. Then I joined the dots.

When to go? One thing that the Germans seem to do better than most is Christmas markets. So I plumped for the month before Christmas for my adventure, when I could look forward to savouring warm mugs of mulled wine alongside snowy Christmas trees and enthusiastic choristers singing Stille Nacht.