In the 1955 film Daddy Long Legs, the actress Leslie Caron, playing a teenage waif in an orphanage, is plucked out of her drab milieu and introduced to a posh life, where she can have just about anything. What she asks for is an "'amburger with chocolate sauce," homing in on the most tasteful delicacy she can imagine.

During my second trip to Hamburg (a city, I should parenthetically add, that has captured my heart), I had occasion to drive with a friend into the countryside, skirting decorated, half-timbered homes with elaborate thatched roofs in charming neighborhoods. A highlight of this road trip was our drive through Altes Land, the largest fruit-producing region in Northern Europe.

During my first trip to Hamburg last year, I was so smitten with the astonishing Elbphilharmonie that I knew I had to return to this Hanseatic city and the celebrated concert hall for another opportunity to imbibe the heady grandeur of this splendid monument to music… and to do more of the things in Hamburg that I had not had time to do during my first visit.

How is it that women sporting scarlet frocks seem to get songs written about them? Cuban-born crooner and bandleader Desi Arnaz told us that "The fellas are crazy for the lady in red…" and that she was "the toast of the town." And much more recently, Argentine-born, UK-raised Chris deBurgh, gave us his hit "The Lady in Red," in which he intoned, "I've never seen so many people want to be there by your side." Indeed.