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lupestripeWe had been meaning to go to Bremen for about two years, since Wolfie visited the city during lockdown when working for a previous company. Back then, everything was closed and the city was quiet, but as he walked around, he thought it would be a good place for both of us to visit. With Friday being a public holiday in Berlin and with the possibility of me taking the Thursday off work, that opportunity seemed to rear its head. With pretty decent weather for the time of year - not the flurrying snowdrifts we had to endure walking around Hannover the year before - things we set for a very good weekend, although Wolfie's continual dizzy spells did make things a challenge in places.
We had been waiting in earnest to see whether the trip would even be viable, knowing that the four-week moratorium on Deutsche Bahn strikes was due to end on 3 March. I had discovered that the talks between the rail operator and the GDL union had collapsed the previous Thursday, 29 February, with the GDL head having a press conference on the Monday before our trip. Knowing the last strike back in January lasted six days, I was quite apprehensive about what this strike would be, and was furiously updated the Bild website which had a live text tracker of the conference. We got lucky as it was announced that the strikes would begin at 2am on the Thursday, ending 35 hours later. As we were due to travel on the Wednesday evening, we were narrowly going to miss it, while our next train trip wasn't planned until the Saturday when the strikes would be over. The journey to Bremen itself was largely stress-free, but there was a threat we would miss our connection in Hannover as we were running about 20 minutes late. In the end, they held the connecting service back, probably thinking a five-minute delay here under the circumstances was far more preferable than having to chaperone a load of disgruntled travelers to wherever they were meant to be going. The train itself was a regional rather than ICE, but it still got us to Bremen on time, just before 11pm.
We hadn't had much to eat, so we tried to go to McDonald's. However, it was very busy, so we opted instead for Burger King, which is situated on the other side of the Hauptbahnhof. I had forgotten just how good Burger King's burgers are, while the fries were nicely salted too. After capturing a photo of the station frontage lit up at night, and perusing some of the glass-fronted advertising booths situated outside (one of which contained an advert for a nearby wolf sanctuary with wolf plushies and pictures of wolves in it), we headed over to the Meiniger Hotel which was just down the road. We checked in and headed down to the bar for a quick beer, realising that most of the bars would be closing at midnight and we would never make them anyway (plus we did need to go in the shower if we were being honest). Bremen is the home of Becks and this is what we ended up having, realising about halfway down just how gassy it is. We had been tempted to do the Becks tour, but you needed to book it a few days in advance and I didn't want to have to commit to something that may need to be cancelled due to Wolfie's dizziness. Plus, we had already seen enough breweries anyway without needing to go to a macrobrewery.
We awoke reasonably early for us on Thursday and I headed down to the bar to pick up a sandwich for breakfast. It looked like some sort of prosciutto so you can imagine my surprise when I found out it was salmon and cream cheese. Still, it was pleasant enough and allowed me to push the old bowel movements through, meaning I was feeling pretty light for most of the afternoon. The main plan on the Thursday was to see the city's historical sites, so we made our way towards the Altstadt, passing through areas that can only really be described as looking a bit like Luton. Even in the old town, the melange of ancient and new builds was surprising, reminding me of the hotch-potch that is Coventry after their post-war reconstruction. That was nothing compared to the overpass that went right through the city near the Hauptbahnhof, which very much had vibes of the A19 decimating central Middlesbrough. I remember being incredibly happy just walking around and seeing things with Wolfie again. This was the first trip we had done, outside of cons, since October and I had missed the joy of just being with him. At home, the routine gets stale and we have been sleeping apart a lot recently, so to spend some quality time with him was really uplifting.
The first sight we saw was the Mühle am Wall, an old-style windmill situated on the Stadtgraben, the fortification moat that jags its way along the northern fringe of the old town. It is now a restaurant that was unfortunately closed as we were wandering around, although we did circumnavigate its base before heading deeper into the Altstadt. En route, we spotted the wonderful advert for Hamburg's galleries, which had the Cookie Monster wandering through a gallery looking at the paintings. It definitely made me smile. The same thing was true of all of the random buildings, statues and artwork we stumbled across, particularly the fighting one outside the art deco style Sparkasse, which again looked like something straight out of Fritz Lang's Metropolis.
Most of the main sights are within a block of each other, and with a handy paper map we had picked up at the hotel, rattling through them was pretty easy. The highlight here was undoubtedly the Roland Statue, the largest at 5.55m of the 26 Roland statues throughout Germany. This also makes it the most famous. The gold shield he displays is particularly striking and with the ornately beautiful Rathaus off to his left, you get a real sense of how this city must have been in the Medieval ages. The Roland Statue has been a symbol of the city's Hanseatic trading rights since 1404 and coupled with the Rathaus, which was constructed over the following six years, you got a slice of the former prosperity of the city. The facade, it is worth noting, was built in the 17th century.
This area also highlights the architectural hotch-potch of Germany in general. On the western side of the Marktplatz, which is where the Roland Statue sits, are historical buildings that were added after World War Two. There is the Ratsapotheke and Akzise Customs House, which originally date from 1595 but were reconstructed in 1830, while the Deutsches Haus is a new construction. Directly opposite is the State Parliament, a black and glass monstrosity which very much reflects its 1960s design. It was constructed in 1966. This square is the main central hub and there was plenty of life to see, particularly on the Saturday. We saw one person stood on a soapbox dressed as a Minion while some of the drain covers made animal sounds, which was a neat touch. This was to replicate the Bremen Town Musicians (Bremer Stadtmusikanten) which comes straight out of the Grimm Fairy Tales. The story involves four aging domestic animals, who are neglected and mistreated by their former masters despite putting in a lifetime of hard labour. The quartet run away and become town musicians in Bremen. In the fairy tale, they never actually make it to the city, but they have become synonymous with it. There is a bronze statue by Gerhard Marcks of a donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster on one side of the Marktplatz. It is good luck to rub the donkey's legs and snout. There is often a long queue to do this, but we were fortunate we were travelling in March so we could pretty much walk straight up to it. There was an annoying guy in a brown cardigan leafleting something or other here, but we managed to swerve his presence.
St. Petri Dom is a towering double towered church tucked at one end of the square, conveniently opposite a McDonald's and a small kiosk that sold Wolfie a Coca Cola as he was starting to suffer with his dizziness. Over 1,200 years old and built in the early Gothic period, it was very atmospheric, although this may have had something to do with the fact there has been a power cut and thus no lighting available. It was clearly a localised incident as they didn't expect it to be fixed for something like three weeks. This meant a trip up the tower was out too, but I don't think Wolfie would have liked that anyway. The impressive organs were particularly astounding, but I preferred the huge clock dating from 1647 which was just lying in the apse. To see such a huge timepiece so close up when it should have been on the side of the church was visually stunning and quite breathtaking.
We checked out the Made In Bremen and Markthalle Acht at this point too, noting there was a small food market dotted around the cobbled square. A modernist Poseidon statue was here with decapitated equine heads, as was a black paving slab upon which someone had written 'Spuck an die Rechts - Spit on the Right'. There was a fair bit of spit there. After this, we headed south towards the Weser, taking in the stunning Schütting. Initially a guild house for the many merchants in this port city, this gold and sandstone building became the city's chamber of commerce in 1849. The picture of the ship taking pride of place in the centre of the building at roof height highlights its connection to the naval aspect of the city. The Bremish merchants' coat of arms can also be seen above the entrance.
Behind the Schütting is Böttcherstraße, Bremen's 'Secret Street' which is a little like The Shambles in York, but made of red brick. There is a wonderful Glockenspiel down here, which we saw in action on the Saturday, as well as a number of small independent crafty shops. In the middle there is an open space that houses two museums, with a few statues scattered there too. It looked a little like Zitadelle U-Bahn station in style, but there were little areas to discover, one of which was a fountain which had little bronze statues of the four Bremer Stadtmusikanten. This was on a long pipe, with the brickwork resembling an inverted L shape with grumpy fat men staring back at you. In another cubby area, there were plastic windows of light in varying colours, while if you looked up, there was loads of artwork and breathtaking architecture to discover too. As you enter the street, you spy the golden gilt relief called 'Bringer of Light' while there was also a plaque here dedicated to the flight of the Condor, which was made by Focke-Wulf, who are based nearby. It celebrates the non-stop flight it made between Berlin and New York in August 1938, proclaiming it to be a new bridge between peoples. A year later, World War Two would begin. In one of the coffee houses, there were reliefs of the life of Columbus, with the whole street having an adventurers and explorers theme.
Speaking of this, our next stop was the banks of the Weser River, which we reached through an underpass. We walked along the waterfront for a while, stopping at the Admiral Nelson Pancake Boat which just got funnier and funnier the more you studied it. Firstly, Admiral Nelson was depicted as a pirate for some reason, while secondly, the banner above the main gangway was in Dutch, thus you were boarding the Pannekoekschip. On the side of the gangway, in German and English, it read "Ahoy!!! Enjoy your pancakes aboard Admiral Nelson, the 'coolest ship in Bremen! Savvy?" with a picture of a scurvy-riddled pirate saying this in a speech bubble. It was just downright hilarious and had me tickled for the best part of ten minutes. Indeed, this was pretty much the case until we got to Schuttinger Brewery, where we decided to have a short break and a sit down. In the doorway there was a nice concrete sign of the four Stadtmusikanten advertising the bar, while Wolfie fancied a light mid-afternoon snack so we ended up ordering some poutine. This was advertised as such, but it was really just thick cut chips with cheese, sour cream, tomatoes and rocket. It was nice enough but the portions were humongous, so much so that we had to leave about a third of it as we felt so bloated. For €9.90 you certainly couldn't complain. The beer we had was the typical German microbrewery stuff, but it was pleasant enough, while I personally enjoyed just watching the world go by, staring at the stamp shop that was over the road.
We waddled out of the place about an hour later and headed to the Schnoor Quarter, Bremen's oldest district, dating from the 15th and 16th centuries. It is easily missed as you walk through the civic quarter with its imposing tall buildings, and indeed you need to dip down into it once you find the right roads. Down here, there are some brightly coloured new-builds that fit in well with the area, before you go back in time down winding narrow cobbled alleyways littered with local shops and eateries. At the top end we saw a year-round Christmas store, which looked very incongruous in early March, while we also got to see the smallest house in Germany, which at 4.5 square metres is little bigger than a closet. You can rent it apparently. I loved getting lost in the warren-like streets as the old timber and brick buildings towered over you. On every corner there was a new piece of architecture to see - a stone plaque, a modernist fountain, even a small windmill - making the whole area unique yet also homely. We even got to see an old yellow Deutsche Post telephone box in one of the squares.
After this we headed to the Museum quarter, despite Wolfie's protestations about his head. As we were nearby, I thought it was worth checking out, although there wasn't too much to see. We saw a huge brick circular Ehremal but it was closed so we do not know to what it was dedicated, while the Kunsttunnel was so covered with graffiti it was hard to discern what the art actually was. On our way down here, next to the Kunsthalle (which we were to visit the next day), we saw an interesting small box with a wheel you had to wind. This was a Mobile Place of Remembrance. When you turned the wheel (we noticed the wheel was manufactured in the UK as it had a +44 number), we were told the story of Laye Conde, an asylum seeker from Sierra Leone who died on 7 January 2005 after being force-fed an emetic by a doctor at the police station after his arrest on 27 December 2004. The use of emetics, usually on suspected drugs offenders, was common in Bremen between 1991 and 2005, with over 1,000 incidents in the city alone. The idea was for them to vomit any swallowed drugs, which could then be used as evidence of guilt. It has since been deemed a racist practice but at the time was supported by the ruling coalition. The administering of emetics was deemed as torture and banned by the European Court of Human Rights in 2006, but I was shocked to discover that such a practice seemed to be routine in my lifetime. It was the outrage caused by this incident which led to the ECHR's decision.
We hadn't intended on heading east towards das Viertel (also known as Szeneviertel) but the white colonnades of the theatre were enticing. As we walked past it and down the street, the bohemian nature of the place opened up to us and I had a compulsion to keep walking and go exploring (I am a dog after all). I think Wolfie really wanted to head back to the hotel at this point, but to my shame, I kept insisting we go a little further. At one point, we spied one of the craft beer bars recommended on the Bremen Tourist Board website and I suggested we pop in for a drink. Sadly, it was just turning 5pm and the bar didn't open until 6pm, so we were turned away, albeit by a very nice lady. Wolfie really wanted a lie down by this point, so we turned up the fantastically named Am Dobben as there was a swift way back to the Hauptbahnhof (and thus our hotel) from here. En route, we stopped off at Bohnenstr., which had a sign translated into six languages (including the English Bean Street). We walked down here but quickly discovered, aside from a gay nightclub, there was little of interest. We then headed back down the road down which we initially walked. We actually followed the tram route, which would be useful for us later on, and as we did, Wolfie started to recall some of the places he had ambled by when he had visited the city during lockdown. We saw a wonderful tiger mural on our way back. Once we got to the station, I decided to pop inside, just to see how busy it would be during the strikes. As it turned out, it was pretty lively, not least because many of the local services were unaffected. After this, we headed back to the hotel, where Wolfie had a well-earned lie down.
We slept for about two hours, awakening at around 7:30pm. There was a little confusion as Wolfie thought I woke him up by singing on the toilet, even though his alarm had gone off about five minutes previously. Despite having the huge plate of chips for our mid-afternoon lunch, we thought it wise we would get some more food, while we also wanted to sample some of the drinking establishments recommended by the tourist board. As well as highlighting craft beer houses, they also had something called the Bremer Kneipenprofi. This involved picking up a bar mat in any of the eight participating venues and getting a stamp at each one. If you get four stamps, you get a small prize from the local tourist information place. I am such a stamp wanker that this obviously appealed to me, while Wolfie was less bothered. We had mentioned this in Schüttinger Gasthausbrauerei but the lady serving us had no idea what we were saying. We had walked past a place called Rock & Wurst on the way back from das Viertel and as it was only two tram stops away, we thought it would be a good place to check out. I bought a ticket on the tram itself, while Wolfie just used his Deutschland Ticket, and soon we were deposited pretty near its front door. On this, it proclaims that if you are racist, sexist, homophobic or an asshole, then don't come in, which was a vibe we could definitely relate to. Once inside, it took a short while for us to be noticed, but soon we were sat on the only spare table they had, perusing the menu for food and drink. While they also do steaks and burgers, we weren't particularly ravenous, so we opted for the Currywurst. I had it at the medium spice level while Wolfie had the hottest one, although I couldn't really tell the difference between the two. We also sampled a few brews from a small microbrewery which we thought was local but turned out to be based in Bavaria about as far away from where we were in Germany as possible. Still, the vibe in the place was great, and our waiter understood what the Kneipenprofi scheme was about, getting our beer mats and stamping them too. He also recommended a few places to go later on in the evening - a cocktail place and a dive bar - but alas we ended up drinking more than we had intended and headed home around 1am. I don't think Wolfie's head could have taken much more anyway.
Stamp wankers be stamp wankers so of course I wanted to get more stamps. This is how we ended up in Heldenbar, which was only a short walk away. The beers here were definitely more craft beer in style, while there was quite a comprehensive can list as well. Set in an 1920s art deco theatre, this place was very chill, although we were only one of two occupied tables. The beer menu adopted the same theme, reminding me of the 1927 film Metropolis, which we saw the other week. An old cinema projector was also sat in the lobby below the bar. We ended up staying until closing, just before midnight, deciding to share a wolf-themed can as our final tipple just because it had a cartoon wolf on it. It was called 'The Wolfman Ate My Homework' by Sudden Death Brewing Company. I didn't want to stop there though, spying two more stamp wanking bars in close proximity. You only get the stamps if you drink local Bremen products, which more often than not meant Becks or Haake-Beck. This was certainly the case in Eisen, a pokey and dark rock and metal bar whose vibe I loved. It was an odd choice for a tourist recommendation, but the bar staff were lovely, we got to meet one of the regulars and the place also sold Walkers Crisps. What was there not to like? I wasn't feeling too drunk and was happy to go to another bar, but it was approaching the early hours and the trams had switched to every hour. We were only a 20 minute walk away, but Wolfie had had enough and in hindsight he was right. My hangover the next morning definitely told me so, although this meant that ultimately our stamp wanking selection would remain on three and thus we couldn't claim whatever the small gift was. It felt like being in Bend all over again. Consequently, we headed back on the tram and pretty much crashed into bed, with me only stopping to get a tube of Pringles on the way.
Friday morning was tough, with the desire to lie in bed being particularly strong. Oddly for Wolfie, he woke up at 10am, it was I who was feeling lethargic. I managed to surface at around 1pm, at which point we headed to Backwerk at the Hauptbahnhof to get a Geflugelrolle. This was probably the last thing my bowels needed, but at least where we were going had a public bathroom. We had seen the Pantheon-style Kunsthalle Bremen on our walk around the city on Thursday and with paintings from a range of artists including Vincent Van Gogh, we thought it was worth visiting. It was the perfect pick-me-up as we had a pleasant two hour stroll around the galleries, which charted the history of art from the Medieval Period all the way through to the present day. Lots of different styles were introduced, with each room being devoted to a single art movement or period, while there were plenty I had never heard of before. Certainly the Zero art movement and some of the ones coming out of Germany after World War Two were particularly fascinating, as were those dedicated to utilising new media such as video cameras and TV screens. There were of course quite a few famous artists represented. Most of the interesting stuff was on the first floor, but the phalanx of anthro statues rising from small examples all the way to actual human size was particularly striking, as was the third floor exhibit 'Revolution of the Form - John Cage and the Duty of Disobedience' which saw a number of speakers suspended from the ceiling with different parts of the same 1849 essay - 'On the Duty of Civil Disobedience' by Henry David Thoreau - being read out simultaneously. All passages were manipulated so each recording was exactly the same length at 16 minutes and 49 seconds, while there were six seats underneath the speakers which were moved each day based on specific coordinates. They were installing a new exhibition called 'Wild! Children, Dreams, Animals, Art' which was due to open the following day, so unfortunately most of the ground floor wasn't open to us. They did have parties of school children in though, who I assumed got to preview it. As it was animal themed, it was a shame we couldn't see it, but I guess it was just one of those things. In the main hallway, I did like the skeletal versions of the Bremen Musicians, which was a nice twist on the city symbol. I also enjoyed the stars and heavens exhibit which went through all of the floors of the museum. Essentially, the roof of the museum opens so you can see the stars of the northern hemisphere while on the ground floor are the constellations of the southern hemisphere. Between these, various ovals of blue and red light on each of the three floors represent going through the earth.
After our trip to the Museum, I wanted to head to the Überseestadt, the gentrified former dock area which is now apparently home to various restaurants and cultural sights. It's placing was hard to pin down on Google Maps so I decided to the GOP-Variete-Theater as it was a destination it knew. This necessitated another tram journey, this time the #3, and we were a little concerned when we discovered we were moving perpendicular to where we actually wanted to go. Fortunately, we soon realised there was a diversion and we were quickly restored to the right route. Once we alighted, we realised that there wasn't too much here. The wide river still had an industrial feel to it but it was too windy a day to comfortably walk beside, while many of the buildings here were new office blocks making the whole area feel quite similar to Wellington Place. The Theater is a brown metal box and with little else of interest, we pondered what to do. At this point, I was barely getting any signal on my phone and this was starting to frustrate me, while Wolfie's head, which was made much worse by the lingering hangover, made him grouchy. This meant we snapped at each other for a bit, before deciding we should probably get some food. I really wanted to try some local Bremen delicacies while I think Wolfie just wanted anything, so this was also a cause for tension. Having discounted the restaurants in the local area, we decided to go to Freie Union Brauerei, a place we had wanted to go anyway. Initially, we didn't think they did local cuisine, but Google suggested otherwise. We therefore had a short walk to the #2 tram through an area that very much resembled the outskirts of Manchester before we hung around a sketchy area waiting for our transport. En route here, we saw Leo's Adventure Playground, represented by a rather cute lion mascot. It was a warehouse in an industrial estate, mind.
The tram itself was pleasant although we were amused to overhear a conversation involving four British people with thick accents talking about the cheap price they had paid for a bottle of Smirnoff. As we made our way through the north-western suburbs of Bremen, we spotted a TV tower and restaurant which looked desolate but upon closer inspection housed various communication dishes. We got off pretty much in its shadow and walked through the houses to the brewery, which is in a repurposed warehouse. The brewery itself was founded in 1907 and re-founded in 2015 after laying dormant for around 50 years. It is very much the German-style of craft brewing, offering modest twists on a range of traditional styles. Still, a maple stout is quite adventurous here, and the sample tray we had of their core range of five beers was solid enough. As we walked up to the place, we spotted loads of people going the same way and feared it would be busy. So it proved to be, but we were in luck as if we sat at the bar, there would be room. This was actually perfect for us as it meant we could talk to the bar staff, while we were also allowed to have food here too. Google was correct as well, they did serve local dishes, so we were soon tucking into Bremer Knipp and Kohl und Pinkel (kale and sausage). We shared these, swapping our plates halfway through (Wolfie ate all my pickle as I'm not a fan). The former is a traditional sausage which resembles haggis, except without the full oaty flavour. It was perhaps a little moister than a haggis too but tasted wonderful with the apple compote with which it was served. The latter is another traditional smoked pork sausage which is served with kale and cabbage. This had quite an irony taste and got a little sickly after a while, but the meat was wonderful, while the two different types of potato with which these were served was also very good.
Wolfie was starting to really suffer by now though, even though it wasn't even 8pm. We had deliberately gone for dinner early to avoid the crowds, which proved to be wise, but he just wanted to rest. He conceded that he felt better lying or sitting down than standing up, so we got a tram back to the hotel once we had finished our beers. This meant a traipse back through the residential area, with the tram journey this time consisting of two drunk Turkish guys singing love songs to each other. We deposited almost outside our hotel, where we went inside and had a shower and a nap. Wolfie did say that if I wanted to go stamp wanking by going to more bars, he would be fine with that, but I didn't fancy going out on my own so I just stayed in and read. I also sorted the train tickets out for Munster, which also required Wolfie buying a new Deutsche Bahn card. It was certainly a sedate Friday evening - one of the most sedate I have ever had on our travels - but it probably set us up well for the Saturday.
Check out at the hotel was 11am and we had one final thing we wanted to see, the Glockenspiel in Böttcherstraße. In the winter months, this only chimes at 12 noon, 3pm and 6pm, and we hadn't been around to see it earlier in the week. With our train booked for 12:44pm, we had just enough time to see it. However, with an hour to kill, we decided to check out the Made in Bremen store, where we picked up a few local Ahoi beers. I enjoyed the German sea shanty they were playing in store, while the adjacent Markthalle Acht had a range of interesting cuisine including a Ukrainian concession. We had toyed with getting a coffee here while we waited - or choosing one of the multiple coffee roasteries in the city - but we didn't think we had enough time. We were slightly wrong on that and ended up waiting about 15 minutes underneath the Glockenspielhaus. This did get us in prime position though, underneath the sign of a bar that I didn't realise was the same wildly expensive chain as the one at BER Airport. You would have thought I would have noticed the owl. The small square upon which the tall brick Glockenspielhaus sits filled up quite quickly and at 12 noon precisely, the bells situated between its two turrets started to chime. Shortly afterwards, a fake brick wall on the left-hand support column of the house started to rotate, revealing ten wooden-cut pictures of adventurers and explorers. These dated from Columbus all the way through to the space age, so it is clearly a new design. I do like German Glockenspeils as the scenes they use to accompany the chimes are quite varied. The whole show went on for eight minutes or so and I was enthralled by it, even if the panels were obscured somewhat by some scaffolding. Still, it was a great way to round off our trip to Bremen and we got back to the station in just enough time to catch our train.
We had been waiting in earnest to see whether the trip would even be viable, knowing that the four-week moratorium on Deutsche Bahn strikes was due to end on 3 March. I had discovered that the talks between the rail operator and the GDL union had collapsed the previous Thursday, 29 February, with the GDL head having a press conference on the Monday before our trip. Knowing the last strike back in January lasted six days, I was quite apprehensive about what this strike would be, and was furiously updated the Bild website which had a live text tracker of the conference. We got lucky as it was announced that the strikes would begin at 2am on the Thursday, ending 35 hours later. As we were due to travel on the Wednesday evening, we were narrowly going to miss it, while our next train trip wasn't planned until the Saturday when the strikes would be over. The journey to Bremen itself was largely stress-free, but there was a threat we would miss our connection in Hannover as we were running about 20 minutes late. In the end, they held the connecting service back, probably thinking a five-minute delay here under the circumstances was far more preferable than having to chaperone a load of disgruntled travelers to wherever they were meant to be going. The train itself was a regional rather than ICE, but it still got us to Bremen on time, just before 11pm.
We hadn't had much to eat, so we tried to go to McDonald's. However, it was very busy, so we opted instead for Burger King, which is situated on the other side of the Hauptbahnhof. I had forgotten just how good Burger King's burgers are, while the fries were nicely salted too. After capturing a photo of the station frontage lit up at night, and perusing some of the glass-fronted advertising booths situated outside (one of which contained an advert for a nearby wolf sanctuary with wolf plushies and pictures of wolves in it), we headed over to the Meiniger Hotel which was just down the road. We checked in and headed down to the bar for a quick beer, realising that most of the bars would be closing at midnight and we would never make them anyway (plus we did need to go in the shower if we were being honest). Bremen is the home of Becks and this is what we ended up having, realising about halfway down just how gassy it is. We had been tempted to do the Becks tour, but you needed to book it a few days in advance and I didn't want to have to commit to something that may need to be cancelled due to Wolfie's dizziness. Plus, we had already seen enough breweries anyway without needing to go to a macrobrewery.
We awoke reasonably early for us on Thursday and I headed down to the bar to pick up a sandwich for breakfast. It looked like some sort of prosciutto so you can imagine my surprise when I found out it was salmon and cream cheese. Still, it was pleasant enough and allowed me to push the old bowel movements through, meaning I was feeling pretty light for most of the afternoon. The main plan on the Thursday was to see the city's historical sites, so we made our way towards the Altstadt, passing through areas that can only really be described as looking a bit like Luton. Even in the old town, the melange of ancient and new builds was surprising, reminding me of the hotch-potch that is Coventry after their post-war reconstruction. That was nothing compared to the overpass that went right through the city near the Hauptbahnhof, which very much had vibes of the A19 decimating central Middlesbrough. I remember being incredibly happy just walking around and seeing things with Wolfie again. This was the first trip we had done, outside of cons, since October and I had missed the joy of just being with him. At home, the routine gets stale and we have been sleeping apart a lot recently, so to spend some quality time with him was really uplifting.
The first sight we saw was the Mühle am Wall, an old-style windmill situated on the Stadtgraben, the fortification moat that jags its way along the northern fringe of the old town. It is now a restaurant that was unfortunately closed as we were wandering around, although we did circumnavigate its base before heading deeper into the Altstadt. En route, we spotted the wonderful advert for Hamburg's galleries, which had the Cookie Monster wandering through a gallery looking at the paintings. It definitely made me smile. The same thing was true of all of the random buildings, statues and artwork we stumbled across, particularly the fighting one outside the art deco style Sparkasse, which again looked like something straight out of Fritz Lang's Metropolis.
Most of the main sights are within a block of each other, and with a handy paper map we had picked up at the hotel, rattling through them was pretty easy. The highlight here was undoubtedly the Roland Statue, the largest at 5.55m of the 26 Roland statues throughout Germany. This also makes it the most famous. The gold shield he displays is particularly striking and with the ornately beautiful Rathaus off to his left, you get a real sense of how this city must have been in the Medieval ages. The Roland Statue has been a symbol of the city's Hanseatic trading rights since 1404 and coupled with the Rathaus, which was constructed over the following six years, you got a slice of the former prosperity of the city. The facade, it is worth noting, was built in the 17th century.
This area also highlights the architectural hotch-potch of Germany in general. On the western side of the Marktplatz, which is where the Roland Statue sits, are historical buildings that were added after World War Two. There is the Ratsapotheke and Akzise Customs House, which originally date from 1595 but were reconstructed in 1830, while the Deutsches Haus is a new construction. Directly opposite is the State Parliament, a black and glass monstrosity which very much reflects its 1960s design. It was constructed in 1966. This square is the main central hub and there was plenty of life to see, particularly on the Saturday. We saw one person stood on a soapbox dressed as a Minion while some of the drain covers made animal sounds, which was a neat touch. This was to replicate the Bremen Town Musicians (Bremer Stadtmusikanten) which comes straight out of the Grimm Fairy Tales. The story involves four aging domestic animals, who are neglected and mistreated by their former masters despite putting in a lifetime of hard labour. The quartet run away and become town musicians in Bremen. In the fairy tale, they never actually make it to the city, but they have become synonymous with it. There is a bronze statue by Gerhard Marcks of a donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster on one side of the Marktplatz. It is good luck to rub the donkey's legs and snout. There is often a long queue to do this, but we were fortunate we were travelling in March so we could pretty much walk straight up to it. There was an annoying guy in a brown cardigan leafleting something or other here, but we managed to swerve his presence.
St. Petri Dom is a towering double towered church tucked at one end of the square, conveniently opposite a McDonald's and a small kiosk that sold Wolfie a Coca Cola as he was starting to suffer with his dizziness. Over 1,200 years old and built in the early Gothic period, it was very atmospheric, although this may have had something to do with the fact there has been a power cut and thus no lighting available. It was clearly a localised incident as they didn't expect it to be fixed for something like three weeks. This meant a trip up the tower was out too, but I don't think Wolfie would have liked that anyway. The impressive organs were particularly astounding, but I preferred the huge clock dating from 1647 which was just lying in the apse. To see such a huge timepiece so close up when it should have been on the side of the church was visually stunning and quite breathtaking.
We checked out the Made In Bremen and Markthalle Acht at this point too, noting there was a small food market dotted around the cobbled square. A modernist Poseidon statue was here with decapitated equine heads, as was a black paving slab upon which someone had written 'Spuck an die Rechts - Spit on the Right'. There was a fair bit of spit there. After this, we headed south towards the Weser, taking in the stunning Schütting. Initially a guild house for the many merchants in this port city, this gold and sandstone building became the city's chamber of commerce in 1849. The picture of the ship taking pride of place in the centre of the building at roof height highlights its connection to the naval aspect of the city. The Bremish merchants' coat of arms can also be seen above the entrance.
Behind the Schütting is Böttcherstraße, Bremen's 'Secret Street' which is a little like The Shambles in York, but made of red brick. There is a wonderful Glockenspiel down here, which we saw in action on the Saturday, as well as a number of small independent crafty shops. In the middle there is an open space that houses two museums, with a few statues scattered there too. It looked a little like Zitadelle U-Bahn station in style, but there were little areas to discover, one of which was a fountain which had little bronze statues of the four Bremer Stadtmusikanten. This was on a long pipe, with the brickwork resembling an inverted L shape with grumpy fat men staring back at you. In another cubby area, there were plastic windows of light in varying colours, while if you looked up, there was loads of artwork and breathtaking architecture to discover too. As you enter the street, you spy the golden gilt relief called 'Bringer of Light' while there was also a plaque here dedicated to the flight of the Condor, which was made by Focke-Wulf, who are based nearby. It celebrates the non-stop flight it made between Berlin and New York in August 1938, proclaiming it to be a new bridge between peoples. A year later, World War Two would begin. In one of the coffee houses, there were reliefs of the life of Columbus, with the whole street having an adventurers and explorers theme.
Speaking of this, our next stop was the banks of the Weser River, which we reached through an underpass. We walked along the waterfront for a while, stopping at the Admiral Nelson Pancake Boat which just got funnier and funnier the more you studied it. Firstly, Admiral Nelson was depicted as a pirate for some reason, while secondly, the banner above the main gangway was in Dutch, thus you were boarding the Pannekoekschip. On the side of the gangway, in German and English, it read "Ahoy!!! Enjoy your pancakes aboard Admiral Nelson, the 'coolest ship in Bremen! Savvy?" with a picture of a scurvy-riddled pirate saying this in a speech bubble. It was just downright hilarious and had me tickled for the best part of ten minutes. Indeed, this was pretty much the case until we got to Schuttinger Brewery, where we decided to have a short break and a sit down. In the doorway there was a nice concrete sign of the four Stadtmusikanten advertising the bar, while Wolfie fancied a light mid-afternoon snack so we ended up ordering some poutine. This was advertised as such, but it was really just thick cut chips with cheese, sour cream, tomatoes and rocket. It was nice enough but the portions were humongous, so much so that we had to leave about a third of it as we felt so bloated. For €9.90 you certainly couldn't complain. The beer we had was the typical German microbrewery stuff, but it was pleasant enough, while I personally enjoyed just watching the world go by, staring at the stamp shop that was over the road.
We waddled out of the place about an hour later and headed to the Schnoor Quarter, Bremen's oldest district, dating from the 15th and 16th centuries. It is easily missed as you walk through the civic quarter with its imposing tall buildings, and indeed you need to dip down into it once you find the right roads. Down here, there are some brightly coloured new-builds that fit in well with the area, before you go back in time down winding narrow cobbled alleyways littered with local shops and eateries. At the top end we saw a year-round Christmas store, which looked very incongruous in early March, while we also got to see the smallest house in Germany, which at 4.5 square metres is little bigger than a closet. You can rent it apparently. I loved getting lost in the warren-like streets as the old timber and brick buildings towered over you. On every corner there was a new piece of architecture to see - a stone plaque, a modernist fountain, even a small windmill - making the whole area unique yet also homely. We even got to see an old yellow Deutsche Post telephone box in one of the squares.
After this we headed to the Museum quarter, despite Wolfie's protestations about his head. As we were nearby, I thought it was worth checking out, although there wasn't too much to see. We saw a huge brick circular Ehremal but it was closed so we do not know to what it was dedicated, while the Kunsttunnel was so covered with graffiti it was hard to discern what the art actually was. On our way down here, next to the Kunsthalle (which we were to visit the next day), we saw an interesting small box with a wheel you had to wind. This was a Mobile Place of Remembrance. When you turned the wheel (we noticed the wheel was manufactured in the UK as it had a +44 number), we were told the story of Laye Conde, an asylum seeker from Sierra Leone who died on 7 January 2005 after being force-fed an emetic by a doctor at the police station after his arrest on 27 December 2004. The use of emetics, usually on suspected drugs offenders, was common in Bremen between 1991 and 2005, with over 1,000 incidents in the city alone. The idea was for them to vomit any swallowed drugs, which could then be used as evidence of guilt. It has since been deemed a racist practice but at the time was supported by the ruling coalition. The administering of emetics was deemed as torture and banned by the European Court of Human Rights in 2006, but I was shocked to discover that such a practice seemed to be routine in my lifetime. It was the outrage caused by this incident which led to the ECHR's decision.
We hadn't intended on heading east towards das Viertel (also known as Szeneviertel) but the white colonnades of the theatre were enticing. As we walked past it and down the street, the bohemian nature of the place opened up to us and I had a compulsion to keep walking and go exploring (I am a dog after all). I think Wolfie really wanted to head back to the hotel at this point, but to my shame, I kept insisting we go a little further. At one point, we spied one of the craft beer bars recommended on the Bremen Tourist Board website and I suggested we pop in for a drink. Sadly, it was just turning 5pm and the bar didn't open until 6pm, so we were turned away, albeit by a very nice lady. Wolfie really wanted a lie down by this point, so we turned up the fantastically named Am Dobben as there was a swift way back to the Hauptbahnhof (and thus our hotel) from here. En route, we stopped off at Bohnenstr., which had a sign translated into six languages (including the English Bean Street). We walked down here but quickly discovered, aside from a gay nightclub, there was little of interest. We then headed back down the road down which we initially walked. We actually followed the tram route, which would be useful for us later on, and as we did, Wolfie started to recall some of the places he had ambled by when he had visited the city during lockdown. We saw a wonderful tiger mural on our way back. Once we got to the station, I decided to pop inside, just to see how busy it would be during the strikes. As it turned out, it was pretty lively, not least because many of the local services were unaffected. After this, we headed back to the hotel, where Wolfie had a well-earned lie down.
We slept for about two hours, awakening at around 7:30pm. There was a little confusion as Wolfie thought I woke him up by singing on the toilet, even though his alarm had gone off about five minutes previously. Despite having the huge plate of chips for our mid-afternoon lunch, we thought it wise we would get some more food, while we also wanted to sample some of the drinking establishments recommended by the tourist board. As well as highlighting craft beer houses, they also had something called the Bremer Kneipenprofi. This involved picking up a bar mat in any of the eight participating venues and getting a stamp at each one. If you get four stamps, you get a small prize from the local tourist information place. I am such a stamp wanker that this obviously appealed to me, while Wolfie was less bothered. We had mentioned this in Schüttinger Gasthausbrauerei but the lady serving us had no idea what we were saying. We had walked past a place called Rock & Wurst on the way back from das Viertel and as it was only two tram stops away, we thought it would be a good place to check out. I bought a ticket on the tram itself, while Wolfie just used his Deutschland Ticket, and soon we were deposited pretty near its front door. On this, it proclaims that if you are racist, sexist, homophobic or an asshole, then don't come in, which was a vibe we could definitely relate to. Once inside, it took a short while for us to be noticed, but soon we were sat on the only spare table they had, perusing the menu for food and drink. While they also do steaks and burgers, we weren't particularly ravenous, so we opted for the Currywurst. I had it at the medium spice level while Wolfie had the hottest one, although I couldn't really tell the difference between the two. We also sampled a few brews from a small microbrewery which we thought was local but turned out to be based in Bavaria about as far away from where we were in Germany as possible. Still, the vibe in the place was great, and our waiter understood what the Kneipenprofi scheme was about, getting our beer mats and stamping them too. He also recommended a few places to go later on in the evening - a cocktail place and a dive bar - but alas we ended up drinking more than we had intended and headed home around 1am. I don't think Wolfie's head could have taken much more anyway.
Stamp wankers be stamp wankers so of course I wanted to get more stamps. This is how we ended up in Heldenbar, which was only a short walk away. The beers here were definitely more craft beer in style, while there was quite a comprehensive can list as well. Set in an 1920s art deco theatre, this place was very chill, although we were only one of two occupied tables. The beer menu adopted the same theme, reminding me of the 1927 film Metropolis, which we saw the other week. An old cinema projector was also sat in the lobby below the bar. We ended up staying until closing, just before midnight, deciding to share a wolf-themed can as our final tipple just because it had a cartoon wolf on it. It was called 'The Wolfman Ate My Homework' by Sudden Death Brewing Company. I didn't want to stop there though, spying two more stamp wanking bars in close proximity. You only get the stamps if you drink local Bremen products, which more often than not meant Becks or Haake-Beck. This was certainly the case in Eisen, a pokey and dark rock and metal bar whose vibe I loved. It was an odd choice for a tourist recommendation, but the bar staff were lovely, we got to meet one of the regulars and the place also sold Walkers Crisps. What was there not to like? I wasn't feeling too drunk and was happy to go to another bar, but it was approaching the early hours and the trams had switched to every hour. We were only a 20 minute walk away, but Wolfie had had enough and in hindsight he was right. My hangover the next morning definitely told me so, although this meant that ultimately our stamp wanking selection would remain on three and thus we couldn't claim whatever the small gift was. It felt like being in Bend all over again. Consequently, we headed back on the tram and pretty much crashed into bed, with me only stopping to get a tube of Pringles on the way.
Friday morning was tough, with the desire to lie in bed being particularly strong. Oddly for Wolfie, he woke up at 10am, it was I who was feeling lethargic. I managed to surface at around 1pm, at which point we headed to Backwerk at the Hauptbahnhof to get a Geflugelrolle. This was probably the last thing my bowels needed, but at least where we were going had a public bathroom. We had seen the Pantheon-style Kunsthalle Bremen on our walk around the city on Thursday and with paintings from a range of artists including Vincent Van Gogh, we thought it was worth visiting. It was the perfect pick-me-up as we had a pleasant two hour stroll around the galleries, which charted the history of art from the Medieval Period all the way through to the present day. Lots of different styles were introduced, with each room being devoted to a single art movement or period, while there were plenty I had never heard of before. Certainly the Zero art movement and some of the ones coming out of Germany after World War Two were particularly fascinating, as were those dedicated to utilising new media such as video cameras and TV screens. There were of course quite a few famous artists represented. Most of the interesting stuff was on the first floor, but the phalanx of anthro statues rising from small examples all the way to actual human size was particularly striking, as was the third floor exhibit 'Revolution of the Form - John Cage and the Duty of Disobedience' which saw a number of speakers suspended from the ceiling with different parts of the same 1849 essay - 'On the Duty of Civil Disobedience' by Henry David Thoreau - being read out simultaneously. All passages were manipulated so each recording was exactly the same length at 16 minutes and 49 seconds, while there were six seats underneath the speakers which were moved each day based on specific coordinates. They were installing a new exhibition called 'Wild! Children, Dreams, Animals, Art' which was due to open the following day, so unfortunately most of the ground floor wasn't open to us. They did have parties of school children in though, who I assumed got to preview it. As it was animal themed, it was a shame we couldn't see it, but I guess it was just one of those things. In the main hallway, I did like the skeletal versions of the Bremen Musicians, which was a nice twist on the city symbol. I also enjoyed the stars and heavens exhibit which went through all of the floors of the museum. Essentially, the roof of the museum opens so you can see the stars of the northern hemisphere while on the ground floor are the constellations of the southern hemisphere. Between these, various ovals of blue and red light on each of the three floors represent going through the earth.
After our trip to the Museum, I wanted to head to the Überseestadt, the gentrified former dock area which is now apparently home to various restaurants and cultural sights. It's placing was hard to pin down on Google Maps so I decided to the GOP-Variete-Theater as it was a destination it knew. This necessitated another tram journey, this time the #3, and we were a little concerned when we discovered we were moving perpendicular to where we actually wanted to go. Fortunately, we soon realised there was a diversion and we were quickly restored to the right route. Once we alighted, we realised that there wasn't too much here. The wide river still had an industrial feel to it but it was too windy a day to comfortably walk beside, while many of the buildings here were new office blocks making the whole area feel quite similar to Wellington Place. The Theater is a brown metal box and with little else of interest, we pondered what to do. At this point, I was barely getting any signal on my phone and this was starting to frustrate me, while Wolfie's head, which was made much worse by the lingering hangover, made him grouchy. This meant we snapped at each other for a bit, before deciding we should probably get some food. I really wanted to try some local Bremen delicacies while I think Wolfie just wanted anything, so this was also a cause for tension. Having discounted the restaurants in the local area, we decided to go to Freie Union Brauerei, a place we had wanted to go anyway. Initially, we didn't think they did local cuisine, but Google suggested otherwise. We therefore had a short walk to the #2 tram through an area that very much resembled the outskirts of Manchester before we hung around a sketchy area waiting for our transport. En route here, we saw Leo's Adventure Playground, represented by a rather cute lion mascot. It was a warehouse in an industrial estate, mind.
The tram itself was pleasant although we were amused to overhear a conversation involving four British people with thick accents talking about the cheap price they had paid for a bottle of Smirnoff. As we made our way through the north-western suburbs of Bremen, we spotted a TV tower and restaurant which looked desolate but upon closer inspection housed various communication dishes. We got off pretty much in its shadow and walked through the houses to the brewery, which is in a repurposed warehouse. The brewery itself was founded in 1907 and re-founded in 2015 after laying dormant for around 50 years. It is very much the German-style of craft brewing, offering modest twists on a range of traditional styles. Still, a maple stout is quite adventurous here, and the sample tray we had of their core range of five beers was solid enough. As we walked up to the place, we spotted loads of people going the same way and feared it would be busy. So it proved to be, but we were in luck as if we sat at the bar, there would be room. This was actually perfect for us as it meant we could talk to the bar staff, while we were also allowed to have food here too. Google was correct as well, they did serve local dishes, so we were soon tucking into Bremer Knipp and Kohl und Pinkel (kale and sausage). We shared these, swapping our plates halfway through (Wolfie ate all my pickle as I'm not a fan). The former is a traditional sausage which resembles haggis, except without the full oaty flavour. It was perhaps a little moister than a haggis too but tasted wonderful with the apple compote with which it was served. The latter is another traditional smoked pork sausage which is served with kale and cabbage. This had quite an irony taste and got a little sickly after a while, but the meat was wonderful, while the two different types of potato with which these were served was also very good.
Wolfie was starting to really suffer by now though, even though it wasn't even 8pm. We had deliberately gone for dinner early to avoid the crowds, which proved to be wise, but he just wanted to rest. He conceded that he felt better lying or sitting down than standing up, so we got a tram back to the hotel once we had finished our beers. This meant a traipse back through the residential area, with the tram journey this time consisting of two drunk Turkish guys singing love songs to each other. We deposited almost outside our hotel, where we went inside and had a shower and a nap. Wolfie did say that if I wanted to go stamp wanking by going to more bars, he would be fine with that, but I didn't fancy going out on my own so I just stayed in and read. I also sorted the train tickets out for Munster, which also required Wolfie buying a new Deutsche Bahn card. It was certainly a sedate Friday evening - one of the most sedate I have ever had on our travels - but it probably set us up well for the Saturday.
Check out at the hotel was 11am and we had one final thing we wanted to see, the Glockenspiel in Böttcherstraße. In the winter months, this only chimes at 12 noon, 3pm and 6pm, and we hadn't been around to see it earlier in the week. With our train booked for 12:44pm, we had just enough time to see it. However, with an hour to kill, we decided to check out the Made in Bremen store, where we picked up a few local Ahoi beers. I enjoyed the German sea shanty they were playing in store, while the adjacent Markthalle Acht had a range of interesting cuisine including a Ukrainian concession. We had toyed with getting a coffee here while we waited - or choosing one of the multiple coffee roasteries in the city - but we didn't think we had enough time. We were slightly wrong on that and ended up waiting about 15 minutes underneath the Glockenspielhaus. This did get us in prime position though, underneath the sign of a bar that I didn't realise was the same wildly expensive chain as the one at BER Airport. You would have thought I would have noticed the owl. The small square upon which the tall brick Glockenspielhaus sits filled up quite quickly and at 12 noon precisely, the bells situated between its two turrets started to chime. Shortly afterwards, a fake brick wall on the left-hand support column of the house started to rotate, revealing ten wooden-cut pictures of adventurers and explorers. These dated from Columbus all the way through to the space age, so it is clearly a new design. I do like German Glockenspeils as the scenes they use to accompany the chimes are quite varied. The whole show went on for eight minutes or so and I was enthralled by it, even if the panels were obscured somewhat by some scaffolding. Still, it was a great way to round off our trip to Bremen and we got back to the station in just enough time to catch our train.
