The Åkes do Europe 2016

Day 24:

Today we were able to sleep in a bit and picked up some pastries (which were nowhere near the quality of Scandinavian pastries... but they were from a train station, so we'll have the difficult task of tasting more) and coffee before heading into town.

We don't even know where to begin with the sights in Bremen. Its such a small town, but its packed with our favorites: stunning old buildings and open parks. Just the train station alone was built in the mid 1800s and looks magnificent. First on our list to visit was the St Petri Dom, a massive 2 tower cathedral that's on all of the souvenirs from Bremen. But of course, on the way we get excited by the sight of a huge tower and decide to follow that to be slightly disappointed. It led us to the Gemeinde Unser Lieben Frauen Kirche, which we're sure is beautiful, but was under construction and covered in scaffolding and plastic. Thanks to our dear friend, Google, we're sort of bummed that we didn't get to see the church. The first church on the site was built in the NINTH century! But of course war destroyed the building, then it was rebuilt, just to get burned down again, over and over. So its hard to know when the actual parts that remain were put in place, but still... that's just baffling.

Continuing on, by which we mean taking 15 or so steps, we narrowly avoided being pushed in front of a tram by an old couple and entered the Marktplatz. Our backs were to the Bremer Rathaus (town hall), and we were facing, get this, Handelskammer Bremen - Industrie und Handelskammer für Bremen und Bremerhaven. Yes. The most German name possible for the chamber of commerce. The building itself, Haus Schütting, and the "IHK" have vast histories in and of themselves, but we can't go THAT deep into a history lesson... but the building is from the mid 1500s and has awesome gold detailing. Inside the marketplace was the statue of Roland, a stone figure built in 1404 depicting one of Charlemagne's bossiest warriors, said to be guarding the city.

Once we had a chance to turn around and see the Rathaus, despite some construction, it was an incredible gothic building from the early 13th century. Through some of the coverings, we could see figures of different emperors and other important people, making another call to the Holy Roman Empire. That starts to put into perspective how massive the empire really was, before any modern transportation. Completely insane.

Right around the corner, we got our first look at what brought us to the city, the St Petri Dom. Its easy to see why that is the trademark of the city, it seriously takes your breath away. And that was just the outside. Inside, the detail and preservation was impressive. They even had the original hand carved wooden doors displayed on a wall. 3 sets of massive pipe organs, open halls, and a dungeonesque room of silence in the basement that seriously looked fake. Like something at Medieval Times. Its impossible to describe, and even harder to capture in a picture the scale of everything, yet if you look closely, the details are all so fine. And to think, it was built in 789. A THREE digit year! It was built closer to the time Jesus was on earth than us. Of course, being built in the middle ages, it was burned, smashed, ransacked, and pissed on for hundreds of years, leaving the earliest parts still remaining being from about the 11th century.

Next, we went to Böttcherstraße, this weird, artistic street built in the 20s. It was definitely interesting, but very strange. Bricks stacking out from the walls, twists and turns, and everything is made in an expressionist style. Funny fact: the entrance has a large golden art piece called the Bringer of Light. It was built to represent Hilter, but he disagreed with their love of the Nordic people so he never accepted it. Which is probably why the art piece still exists today. So we can thank the Nordic people again!

We were in need of some of Bremen's finest, and we knew we were near another iconic street, so we made our way to Schnoor. It was originally the poor end of town in the middle ages, and ironically is the best preserved portion of housing from the era. Being a historically poor area made Schnoor a less than prime target during the world wars, which, history lesson, was the worst for a community in Germany. Essentially taxes had to be paid for NOT having your house destroyed. So the residents moved out of the already dilapidated houses and were replaced by restaurants and businesses that now sell goofy souvenirs to tourists. But the area is amazingly preserved as exactly what you would imagine as classic German houses.

Leaving Schnoor, we came across the Propsteikirche St. Johann. Its a 14th century monastery church. Of course it was beautiful, of course we touched the bricks, but the crown jewel of the church is said to be the pipe organ. Unfortunately, with the upturn in the economy, everything under construction. We don't mind, because that is preserving these beautiful buildings for future generations, but we would've liked to have seen the inside. We then wandered upon the Sankt Martini Kirche. Story time. Basically, the citizens of the town said they were sick of everything in the city being militaristic and they wanted more churches. So whatever head of the church set out plans to build. It was the early 13th century, and most of the original building remains. There was a docent there when we went through the church, and he was so enthusiastic about everything that we just couldn't break to him that we didn't understand a word he said. ...other than detailed, which it definitely was.

As we made our way back to the city center, we caught something we had lost in the awe of everything, the Bremer Stadtmusikanten. Its a relatively new sculpture depicting the characters of a fairy tale called, of course, the Town Musicians of Bremen. The characters in the story at no point were in Bremen, but it was written by the Brothers Grimm, so they can do whatever they please... After all, the did write Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow Qite, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, and any other classic Disney film you could think of. We rubbed the donkey's hoof to have a wish come true, and moved on. Its fun to see iconic sculptures such as those, but no need to linger.

We had seen that Am Wall was a sight to see, as well, but we got distracted by the park along Am Wall street and ended up taking a nap on the grass next to a huge windmill. Turns out the windmill was actually built on top of an old gate tower, from when the city was surrounded by ramparts. We didn't end up looking at the houses on Am Wall, partially because we didn't really look in depth into what was special about them. They are houses built on and integrating the medieval wall. We're not sure how apparent that it, but its still a pretty cool fact.

We went to the Bier Fest again, but instead of country, it was some pretty crazy rock band. We ended up talking to an older German couple who were very passionate about American craft beer and apparently make a biannual trip to California.

It was another very busy day, with a whole bunch of walking. Luckily, our bodies are getting used to the walking, so its just funny to look at the step counter when we get home, saying we walked 10 miles!Read more