Bremen

The first thing we noticed was that the cycle paths weren't quite as nice as in the Netherlands and the signs for the EuroVelo route basically disappeared or became incredibly small. We cycled on to the town of Leer, where we were sent to "the camping pitch," which was where they shoved all the tents together on two small pitches surrounded by caravans (this turned out to be the same everywhere we went in Germany). The next day, we headed into Leer to originally see the miniature world and get breakfast, but after seeing the price of tea and coffee, we decided to just get pasties at Lidl instead and head back to camp to pack up in time for our train to Bremen.

After much confusion over our tickets, we waited at the Leer train station for 1.5 hours, munched on sandwiches, and discussed the cultural differences between the Netherlands and Germany. It was a bit daunting and stressful getting on the train and parking our bikes, but watching the scenery on the double-decker train was quite fun. We arrived in Bremen to an overwhelmingly busy terminal and cycled on to a hotel, where we parked our bikes in the underground car park (it felt like leaving a child behind). After freshening up, we donned our civilian clothes and headed out to get some food and see the city. We gorged on a massive falafel dish and chips each, then wandered into the old city streets as it began to rain. Thankful that we didn't have to worry about wet stuff in a tent and instead had a comfy dry hotel bed to sleep in, we stopped at a central cafe and got drinks. By 9 PM, we were very sleepy and headed to bed.

We woke up early even with blackout curtains and headed to a bakery cafe I found on Google Maps that was open on a Sunday morning. It was lovely, and we had delicious hot drinks and pastries, plus some extras to take away.

Back at the hotel, we got back into our lycra and padded shorts, lugged our bags back to our bikes, and headed out of Bremen. It felt like it took ages to get through the city, but we eventually went through a long majestic park and onto some great countryside roads. After an hour, we left all the city day trippers behind and entered some more rugged, wooded, and farm-enclosed paths. For lunch, we found nowhere that was open except for a waffle ice cream shop, which seemed to be where the whole village was gathering. We felt very out of place among all these people saying hello to each other and stopping to chat. But the delicious ice cream made up for our out of place-ness. The villages today were so cute and old, but we still ended up in a caravan filled campsite with a bunch of other tent people. 🙄Read more