By day, Hamburg’s Reeperbahn red light district seems relatively unremarkable.
The streets are quiet, with most of its shops and bars hidden behind heavily-graffitied metal shutters.
For the most part, the only real excitement stems from spying a beer bike or two careering down the street.
But as the sun goes down, the Reeperbahn erupts into colour, noise and sleaze.
Neon signs glow behind plumes of cigarette smoke rising from the packed pavement, attempting to entice punters indoors for all manners of activities – from exotic dancers to the more unashamedly explicit.
But curious tourists and rowdy stag parties far from make up the majority of the Reeperbahn’s visitors.
One of the largest areas of its kind in Europe, it appears that Hamburg’s natives hold it close to their hearts, with groups of all ages pointing out its attractions to one another, browsing its novelty souvenir shops and consuming its vast array of alcohol-absorbing fast foods.
With so many proud of it, it is unsurprising as to how many have reacted to the pleas to bring Liam Colgan – an Inverness man who journeyed to see its sights – back home to Scotland.
Posters of his face and description await at every turn throughout the city, while digital billboards hang above motorists and beside subway trains, reminding them to keep watch for him.
“We’re getting volunteers not just from home, but there’s a lot of people from Hamburg and other areas of Germany as well who are offering to help as much as they can,” his brother, Eamonn Colgan explains.
So much so that, even with just two hours’ notice, a scrum of journalists is able to form close to an hour away from the heart of the city, just to hear an update on his search.
“We are one of the biggest newspapers in Germany, so people across the country will see this,” one reassures Eamonn, before asking for a handful of posters to put up around her neighbourhood.
As the search continues, more and more newspapers are beginning to carry coverage of it – fuelling the hopes that someone, somewhere knows where Liam is, but doesn’t yet know just how significant that information will be.
