A happy Cinco de Mayo to all – not that we kept it here, in North Germany.
We got to Bremen somewhat later than expected; the entire 160 km (roughly) east-west Autobahn A1 between its connection to the north-south A7 and its connection to the A27 which goes up to Bremen and Bremerhafen is being widened to 6 lanes from four. The system used is rather ingenious; about 6 to 8 km stretches where one side is closed and being widened, and the other side and paved shoulder has been repainted into four lanes, two each way, with a 60 or 80 km/hour limit, which in practice is about 60, as the lanes are very narrow. It is very harrowing to pass a large truck, with perhaps 6 inches on each side of the car – six from the truck, six from the steel centre barrier they manage to fit into the middle! Naturally, the traffic very quickly becomes bumper to bumper, especially as it is only allowed to pass trucks, not cars (although that tends to get ignored by some). Then there are 6 to 8 km of open road, two full lanes each way, with the speed limit back up to 100 or 120, which in practice works out to 120 to 140! That unbunches the traffic and spreads everyone out again, before hitting the next restricted section. Some very clever traffic engineering seems to have gone into this, and good psychology as the narrow but same number of lanes avoid the jam that would result from merging two lanes into one, but the narrowness automatically slows everyone down. (I’ve read about this technique recently in a fascinating book titled “Traffic” (author to be supplied when I get my hands on it at home - Tom Vanderbilt, publisher is Knopf Canada). It works, it lengthened the morning trip of roughly 160 km by at most 30 minutes, from the 90 the GPS had predicted, and the evening trip back, with less traffic was perhaps 15 minutes longer.
Bremen does not take much time to see everything important. Even a German author who is an official spokesperson for Bremen tourism admits that it is difficult to stretch the walk-around beyond a leisurely two hours – but in that two hours one sees some fascinating things – it's just that everything is condensed into a very compact Altstadt (old city), and arranged conveniently around a large square and into a few streets off that.
The first stop for everyone seems to be the side of the old city hall and the (modern) bronze statue of the 4 Bremen town musicians; the donkey, dog, cat, and rooster, arranged vertically from largest to smallest, just as they famously scare off the robbers in the Grimm bothers’ fairy tale, a translation of which you can find at http://www.fln.vcu.edu/grimm/bremereng.html , although it leaves off the Grimm brothers’ version of “and they lived happily ever after”; wenn sie nicht gestrorben sind, dann leben sie noch heute – if they didn’t die they are still alive today. A flash-animated version, sanitized to make it “suitable” for children is at http://www.brementownmusicians.com/flash/story . The statue is not all that old (and careful reading of the story shows that the four “musicians” never did get to Bremen, but they have become a sort of icon for the city as the statue depicts them. The (urban) legend is that if you embrace the donkey and rub his legs, you will get a wish granted – experimental evidence shows this to be untrue, as we did not win the daily Bremen lottery for which they sell tickets right next to the statue – but the donkey’s legs are well-polished, and everyone visiting has their picture taken with the four animals.
From there around to the front of the old city hall, which, because of its ornamental facade, is a World Heritage site, as is the statue of Roland directly in front of it. Roland is a figure from German mythology, representing the perfect knight, and this larger-than-life stone statue depicts him in armour, holding a gilded shield with the double eagle emblem of the Holy Roman Empire (which was not holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, but mostly a federation of small Germanic and Frankish duchies and kingdoms out of which modern Germany and France eventually evolved). Again, it is obligatory to have your picture taken with Roland.
The next item to visit is the Sankt Peter Dom, St. Peter’s Cathedral, which is no longer a cathedral, but the main Bremen Lutheran parish church (about 90% of North German Christians are Lutheran). It is a worthy to visit example of the transition from the earlier romanesque architectural style to the newer gothic. It is still very dark, and the nave pillars are still quite heavy, but the windows are getting larger, and one can see the development that a century or two later becomes the classical gothic church; tall, slim pillars, a vaulted ceiling, walls that are more than half windows, and the whole thing supported externally by flying buttresses instead of thick walls. There is a very fine (and free) museum inside that has, notably, some 11th and 12th c Mass vestments, and some very early books of hymns and liturgies.
On the square is also the modern parliament building (as mentioned, Bremen is a city and a state, and thus has both a city council and a parliament consisting of a lower house and a senate, and I have no idea who does what!), but the modern-ness somehow blends in. There is also a new city hall, which is not so new, and again fits right in. Off this square leads a very narrow street, Boetcherstrasse, which is decorated with the art of an early 20th c sculptor, who donated his works to beautify the city. The street is now a colony of art shops, quality clothing shops, the Bremen casino (not sure if one wishes on the donkey before going there) and some restaurants, all interspersed with nooks and crannies with sculpture in them. During the 3rd Reich this street was much neglected and almost destroyed, as the art was not considered Nordic and Germanic enough, but all of it has been restored, and has been adopted by a local bank as a project, and the bank ensures that this historical area is well maintained.
We had lunch at a restaurant in the Boetcherstrasse, and a very fine lunch it was, in a very modern restaurant, right opposite the Hilton’s restaurant, which has been fitted into this street with total integrity. This was the closest to healthy food that we have had, although there is some question whether a green leaf salad with raspberry vinaigrette smothered in probably pan-fried chicken strips (June), or a coconut-curry shrimp soup (Gerry) can be called healthy. June stuck to tea, but I couldn’t leave Bremen without having Becks beer, the most exported German beer, brewed in Bremen.
Travel should be educational, and we learned in the Boetcherstrasse, from the Robinson Crusoe house, that Daniel Defoe’s fictional character Robinson Crusoe had a father who came from Bremen. How that translates into house that is supposedly Robinson’s is a mystery! Neither June nor I knew of this Bremen connection; obviously the donkey, dog, cat, and rooster have better publicists, since even though they never got to Bremen, they have made sure that every German child grows up knowing there is a Bremen, and where it is.
The final stop on the tour of the historic area was the Church of Our Dear Lady, another former Roman Catholic, now Lutheran, church of roughly the same age as St. Peter. It’s main distinction is that all the windows are by a modern Bremen glass artist, and are very beautiful, in very distinct colours. They are abstract depictions of the church year, but although I could relate to the main window "depicting" Pentecost, the others simply didn’t compute – but they are still worth seeing!
Then a drive of about 50 km up the Weser river, although it is not visible from the Autobahn, to Bremerhafen, the harbour of Bremen, and the source of its wealth. The old harbour has become mostly a park and museum of German shipping, and all the actual harbour operations have moved further north, down the Weser river. There is a very active container port, and an automobile port; every German-built car that is exported to a place you can’t drive to is shipped through here. Most of the shore is public, even if one can’t drive along all of it, one can walk along the top of a flood protection dike that runs all along the river. Along that are restaurants, and even a new zoo. No longer there is the quay through which most of the German emigration of the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s passed (including my family and I in 1953). There is a German emigration museum, which we didn’t have time for, but the quay itself has been replaced by a shopping centre on one side of the harbour road, and on the other side, connected to the shopping centre by a perhaps 10 ft diameter glass tube with a walk-way in it is a futuristic entertainment complex that is totally covered with reflecting glass plates, and looks a bit like the offspring of the illict relations of a jellybean and a flying saucer. There is alson another upscale shopping complex(very upscale – June spotted a manikin with a very nice linen suit in black and white on it, and was disappointed when I pointed out that if you added up the prices for the jacket, slacks, belt and matching purse, you’d get very little change – about 4 Euro - from 1600 Euro, about $2500). This complex has been styled inside as an Italian set of streets (complete with warm Mediterranean air and smells), including an airy piazza with ice cream shops. The futuristic look is completed by a new Atlantic Hotel and Conference Centre that manages to look simultaneously like a sail and a ship’s bridge.
Again, another waterfront (we’ve seen so many of them now, all over the world) which has been creatively turned into a beautiful space, accessible to the public, and with a variety of uses. (Hamburg was the same; most of the old docklands are being turned into multi-use buildings, which in the end will increase the population living in the city centre by 40,000.) And in Toronto, all they can think of is to squeeze in yet another boring-looking condo, until it is quite possible to visit or even live in Toronto, and not know it is a city on a lake! Bah!
After a fish supper (we were in a seaport, after all) we reversed the drive back to our hotel. Tomorrow will be an earlier start, as we leave the North, and drive to Pommersfelden (near Hoechstadt/Aisch, my late father’s home), planning to go through Coburg for a visit to its castle, which has interesting history, including hosting Martin Luther briefly while he was hiding out!
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