If you liked the Dome, you will adore Expo 2000. In case you are unfamiliar with the concept, the jamboree, which opened in Hanover two days ago and runs until October 31, is the latest in a line of Universal Expositions stretching back to one held in London in 1851 - the Great Exhibition for which Crystal Palace was built. The best attended was the Osaka Expo of 1970, which drew 64 million people. The last, in Seville eight years ago, attracted only 41m, and the organisers of this one are aiming to do no more than match the Spaniards' tally, even though Hanover's catchment area is much more densely inhabited.
The signs, in other words, are that this is a concept on the retreat, as might be expected in an age when people no longer need to go to a specific place to learn of the latest technological advances. There will be even less pretence in Hanover than there was in Seville that visitors are being shown the newest the age has to offer.
For those of you who saw the last Universal Exposition, Hanover's will look reassuringly, or disappointingly, familiar. Many of the same elements will be there: the cable cars, the water walls, the 360-degree screens, and the daffy-looking mascot. This time round, he/she/it is called Twipsy and is meant to be a data carrier on the internet.
The age group most likely to be thrilled by Expo probably begins at eight and goes up to around 14. Anyone under eight is unlikely to be up to the rigours of a visit that the organisers recommend should last at least three days. Indeed, they have set up a special kiddy park at which parents can leave children in the care of the Red Cross for DM5 (£1.60) an hour.
One of the most promising-sounding events is aimed directly at this pre-adolescent generation. A Fun Sports area has been created at which some of the world's leading experts will be on hand to teach the finer points of BMX biking, inline skating, rock-climbing and the like. For the slightly older, "reluctant-teenager-on-holiday-with-mum-and-dad-for-maybe-the-last-time", there will be an Expo disco with a capacity of 4,000. Entry will be free after midnight.
What mum and dad themselves find to interest them will depend very much on their personal outlooks. There are three main elements at a Universal Exposition: a thematic area arranged by the hosts; the pavilions built by the participating nations and organisations, and a cultural programme. This last depends partly on the hosts and partly on the participants, who often bring in top-flight artists and entertainers for their national days.
With 15,000 events, ranging from 20-minute mime shows to a cycle of performances of Goethe's 21-hour Faust, Expo 2000's cultural programme is certainly extensive. But the early indications are that the organisers will not be laying on as many big names as did the Spanish in 1992.
Expo's PRs say there will be "everybody from Shirley Bassey to Carlos Santana", a phrase that seems to stop some way short of encompassing the cultural universe. Peter Brook, the Berlin Philharmonic, Pina Bausch's dance company and Stomp are among other offerings in a programme that puts the emphasis on "crossover". There will also be a film festival with showings every night throughout the five months the Exposition is open.
How rich the cultural programmes of the individual nations will be is anybody's guess. There is always a hit-or-miss aspect to visiting an Expo. You can find yourself watching an unforgettable concert - or the Swiss Cream Cheese Producers' Yodelling Ensemble on an off day.
The theme of Expo 2000 is "Humankind, Nature and Technology". So eco-consciousness is very much on the agenda. There will be no monster fireworks displays. Instead, water is to be shot 40 metres into the night sky and images projected on to it by laser. All the pavilions will be dismantled or recycled when the fair is over. Some will have been earmarked for a new purpose - for example, the Vatican's building is to be re-erected in Latvia (such details are meat and drink to the true Expo junkie).
The Germans are planning to go one better than a mere 360-degree cinema experience and offer visitors what is billed as a 720-degree cinema experience. It apparently involves the same images taken from different angles being projected on to no less than nine screens.
Britain's pavilion is a mystery. When I toured the site, there was an elegant, though scarcely original, steel-and-glass structure to which workers were attaching red, white and blue motifs. But the organisers said they had no idea what would go into it, and their promotional literature is reduced to noting that the pavilion has "an interesting flexible interior, whereby interior walls can be moved to create different rooms and spaces".
The Finns have brought in part of a forest. The Icelandic pavilion will spout a geyser and the Venezuelan pavilion will be a replica of a sunflower.
Arguably the most interesting of them all, though, will be that of Ethiopia where they plan to exhibit the remains of our earliest known forebear, "Lucy" (age: 3.2 million years). In case you were wondering what a country with a famine and a war on its hands is doing spending £1 million flying the flag, the Ethiopians say all the money came from private sponsors and a German government subsidy.
The only nation of note not there will be the United States, whose legislators have banned any further investment of public cash in such events. But then the US will be effortlessly represented anyhow. There will be 11 sites at which you can buy a Big Mac and it is a dollar to a sinking euro that this Greenest of Expos will end each day brimming with discarded Coca-Cola beakers.
What to see beyond the Expo gates
Have you never heard the saying "See Hanover and die"? Or the song "My kind of town, Han-o-ver is" ? No? Well, there are some very good reasons for that.
The "Messestadt" or "Exhibition City", as it calls itself, has some beautiful gardens and a huge, splendid, artificial lake, the Maschensee. But, for the most part, it is an unexceptional place and few of the visitors who go there for Expo 2000 will want to extend their holiday for the sake of the city alone.
That does not mean, however, that there are not good reasons for staying on in the vicinity.
Imagine, for a moment, a town of cobbled streets lined with half-timbered houses. The houses lean into and away from each other at often bizarre angles. They have been built up in layers, with each storey overhanging the street at a more precipitous angle than the one below. They have steeply-pitched roofs and pastel-coloured facades. On the timbers, there are gilded inscriptions left behind by proud and pious, long-dead burghers.
Just outside the centre, there is a park with a tiny ornamental lake. Nearby is a stately "schloss" with white walls, red roofs and its own theatre and chapel.
Imagining such a town is as close as most people are ever likely to get, so many of its kind having been bombed to ruins between 1939 and 1945. Yet, 30 miles north of Hanover, it has survived.
It is called Celle, and is less than an hour away by train from the Expo 2000 site. If you stay for a week, you'll have time to do the exposition thoroughly, look around Celle and then perhaps hire a car to explore the byways of the nearby countryside.
The Lüneburg heath is among the least spoilt areas of rural Germany, an expanse of barely undulating sandy terrain, interspersed with forests. The area is renowned for its honey, and you can some times catch the scent of it on the breeze, mingled with hints of conifer resins and aromatic plants.
South of Celle, there is the remarkable 13th- century Cistercian convent of Wienhausen - a towering, ivy-clad, red-brick structure with a style all of its own. It is open to the public until 6pm.
But stay on after the nuns have shut their doors and take a walk through the surrounding village, past the ancient wooden belfry, across the bridge over the mill stream to the half-timbered Mühlengrund. This is a guest house-cum-restaurant-cum-pub where the Kollmann family brew their own beer on the premises. The beer comes cloudy, unfiltered and irresistible.
Carry your drink out to the garden and savour it as you gaze out at the broad mill pond, smothered with lily pads. If you catch the muffled notes of the organ in the church over the water, you may even fancy you have gone to heaven.
The other big tourist attraction in the area, about 13 miles north of Celle, is the site of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. But, then, that's Germany for you.
Best bars and cafés
Hanover
Harry's New York Bar Podbielskistrasse 145. Swank, modern cocktail bar in what was once part of the Pelikan pen and pencil factory.
Grüner Pelikan Podbielskistrasse 143a. More informal. Bistro food.
Celle
Raths-Weinschenke Zöllnerstrasse 29. Lilliputian wine bar with tables in a shady courtyard.
Café Muller Südwall 33. What would Germany be without Kaffee und Kuchen? Sample them on a terrace by a stream.
Best restaurants
Hanover
Landhaus Ammann Hildesheimerstr 185. Tel: (0511) 83 08 18. For pushing the boat out.
Pier 51 Rudolf von Bennigsen Ufer 51. Tel: (0511) 80 71 800. Modern bistro on a jetty jutting into the Maschensee.
Celle
Restaurant Endtenfang Fürstenhof Celle, Hannoverischestrasse 55/56. Tel: (05141) 2010. French cuisine.
Il Palio Fürstenhof Celle. Tel: (05141) 2010. New Italian trattoria.
