Things to do in Bremen when you’re there
Bremen, Germany, doesn’t stand out as a top destination, or even an alternative to consider in where to go for a vacation. The city is, however, a major destination for Ryanair in Europe. And that, in combination with probably not being particularly high on anyone’s list, makes it both a cheap and available place to kick back if you’re living in Europe. What to do there is another question - it’s the kind of place that makes your friends go “Bremen? Why? What’s to do in Bremen?”. Even my uncle the Germanophile, and source of knowledge of all things German, had only one thing to say: “It’s a typical German city”. So leaving the “Bremen?” and “Why?” for another article - what is there to do in Bremen?
We arrived friday evening and left on the following sunday afternoon, and this is all personally tried and tested in a dreary January weekend:
- Drink beer in Bremen’s oldest bierhall. They serve dunkel and weissbier straight out of the barrel and you can get it as a large or a small. And you can drink it while sitting on a wooden bench along a large solid wood table. I don’t remember the name of the place, though, but odds are, neither will you.
- Gorge on fatty, meaty German food in a bierstube in the altstadt. Try the Bremener speciality, Knorr.
- Have a traditional bratwürst (or a currywürst) out of a junk food stand in the main square outside the train station.
- Stay at the InterCityHotel Bremen. They charmed us straight into their adequate, three star beds by giving us complementary travel cards for the city’s transport system. That and the beers and the breakfast. (Note: I don’t get anything for mentioning them, I just liked it there.)
Die Schnoor.
- Walk through the small alleys in the Schnoor, the old town of Bremen that was spared from allied bombing when the rest of the city was razed. Stop for beers as often as possible.
- Also stroll through Böttcherstrasse, an Art Noveau-inspired alley with a little winery and a small, interesting sushi-restaurants. However, skip the sushi in favor of some juicy German meat.
- Try to count the number of statues and art installations of Bremen’s favourite chicken-cat-dog-donkey-quartet. These guys are from a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, and as the story goes, they were on their way to Bremen to achieve artistic freedom (if I got it right).
- Take the tramway to visit the University of Bremen and stroll around the functional campus. Enjoy what a free, non-commercial university feels like.
- After that, walk through the park to the science museum. Skip the museum, it seemed too expensive and was aimed at kids anyways.
- Get to talk with the locals - this isn’t hard, they are the most pleasant people you will ever find. Evidence: In the bathroom of the university someone had made a tag that read “YOU GERMANS ARE SO INCREDIBLY PLEASANT! I LOVE YOU!”.
- Visit the cathedral and the town hall.
- See what’s on at opera/theatre. When there we walked straight into a Saturday afternoon play about the stories of a little girl witch. Seeing the one little boy that desperately held on to his panicked father in an ocean of thousands of little girls on a pilgrimage to see the show was well worth the visit.
- Take photos that look like they are made for 5000-piece jigsaw puzzles.
- Stroll through the markets that are not in the altstadt, and try the German crepé with chocolate sauce from a pancake stall.
- Stroll around on random to try to find yet another charming taverna or German bierstube for another drink.
At about noon sunday, we realized we had nothing left to do. Possibly because we could not force down more beer and meat, maybe because absolutely everything is closed on sundays in Germany. We ended up in the main square Starbucks, hoping we would get hungry enough before the planes departed to manage one more meat and cheese tasting plate. However, we never got past that coffee. When we finally left we felt satisfied of Bremen nonetheless, there might just not have been more to do.
Here’s about some other guys’ trip to Bremen. Here’s some more travel information
