Offenbach am Main

Offenbach gave its name to music's wittiest composer without ever being his home: the family of Jacques Offenbach came from here, and when his father, the cantor Isaac Eberst, settled in Cologne, neighbours called him "der Offenbacher" — the name stuck, and the little city on the Main entered every opera programme in the world by proxy.

Its own trades were leather and letters. For two centuries Offenbach was the leather capital of the continent — the German Leather Museum holds everything from Napoleon's campaign case to global saddlery, and the international leather goods fair kept the city booked — while the Klingspor type foundry made it a capital of typography: the Klingspor Museum's collection of book art and lettering is among the finest anywhere, and the tradition lives on in the city's design university, the HfG.

Today Offenbach is Germany's most international city — more than a hundred and sixty nations share its streets — and wears the fact with working-class matter-of-factness: markets, kiosks and restaurants from every latitude, a riverside freshened by the long Main promenade, the Büsing-Palais holding concerts and balls in Baroque rooms, and the Capitol, a former synagogue spared destruction, now serving as a grand hall for shows and orchestras. The Kickers keep football loyalties warm, Frankfurt's towers stand close across the river — and Offenbach, as ever, minds its own vigorous business.