Rostock's Town Hall wears a pink baroque front, with seven arcades below and a clock in the gable. It looks respectable and not very old. Glance up, though, and you'll spot the top of something older poking out behind it.

That's the original Gothic building, begun in 1265, before Rostock joined the Hanseatic League in 1283. The Baroque front came in the 1720s. The Second World War destroyed more than half of the old houses on the Neuer Markt, or New Market, but the Town Hall came through with hardly any damage.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tour of Rostock starts here. It explains how Hanseatic trade made the city a rival of Lübeck and Danzig, then walks you out to the medieval wall.