Bremen, a city in northern Germany and home to the Becks brewery. That was about all I knew about Bremen before I got there. Michelle and I had decided to try and meet somewhere in between Hamburg and Cologne to add a little variety to our semi-regular visits. I don't think either of us knew what a good idea this would turn out to be. Bremen is a gorgeous town. It has a large port and is still one of the largest points in Europe for commodity trading and shipping. I left early on a Saturday morning, taking a string of slower regional trains rather than a direct intercity train in an effort to save some money. You can buy a 'Happy Weekend Ticket' from the rail company which entitles you to take any number and combination of regional trains during a 24 hour period. If you have the patience, this is by far the cheapest way to see the country.
I met Michelle at the main train station, and we walked to the centre of town, a collection of majestic old buildings radiating from a quaint market square, and hemmed in by a series of rivers and canals. As luck would have it, there was a traveling fair in town for the weekend and so the market square was packed with rides, games and food. We indulged in a traditional street-level snack, a slab of fried potatoes with applesauce foregoing the ubiquitous sausage stand. These things really have to be seen to be believed. A gigantic, circular wood-burning grill covered with sausages. The actual cooking area must have a diameter of about two meters, and is suspended over a giant copper fire pit by three chains. The grill can be raised or lowered to vary the temperature using a pulley contraption that the chains are attached too. We certainly didn’t have to worry about finding somewhere to eat that morning, from fish to fresh cr�pes, the fair had plenty to offer. Since we were only in Bremen for the afternoon, we had to play real tourists. We shuffled along from the centre of the city into one of the grand old churches that litter this part of the world, the St. Petri Cathedral. When we emerged from its dimly lit grandeur we were greeted by a flame juggling street performer on our way to one of the oldest parts of the town, the Schnoor quarter. The Schnoor quarter was described in the guide book simply as the ‘touristy part’ with shopping, and it wasn’t kidding. The small streets are filled with tiny shops and homes, all build out of brick and stone and nearly all older than my country. Many of the shops reflect the many different lands that have been using Bremen as a trading post for centuries, with handicrafts and clothing from around the world on display.
We had been having a great time up until that point, wandering around and taking the city in as both of us had had long weeks at work, and we realized as we came to the end of the Schnoor area that a good chunk of the afternoon had already slipped away, and so we started to head back to the centre of town. First though I wanted to see the glockenspiel display that was supposed to be attached to one of the oldest clocks in the city. Housed in a narrow street full of red brick buildings, the clock dates back hundreds of years and is supposed to play an elaborate song on a series of bells, accompanied by an impressive mechanical display at six o’clock each day. At first it didn’t look like we would have time to find it, but we came across it just a few minutes before six, aided by the large crowd of other curious visitors mulling about in the street beneath it. The clock and the bells were evident enough. The gold hands of the clock spun around a dark blue circle, decorated with gold rays which burst from its centre in every direction, all against the backdrop of a sky blue rectangle. Meanwhile, six progressively smaller rows of bells formed a triangle in the empty space between the equally triangular slopes of two neighbouring houses. What remained to be seen, was what this ‘mechanical display’ could be. It was supposed to be like a giant cuckoo clock, or perhaps the kind where two little men pop out of one side of the clock and chase each other along a track only to disappear behind a door on the other side of the clock face. As we waited for six o’clock though, neither Michelle nor myself could come up with any way that a ‘mechanical display’ was going to pop out of the side of this building. Finally the time came, and the bells struck six and then began their song, but nothing else moved. Maybe we were in the wrong part of the city, and these two things weren’t connected after all. But then it happened, a five foot high piece of a brick tower began to shift, and was replaced with an ornate carving of Magellan, and one by one, more carvings of great explorers began to spin their way slowly into view as the bells continued their song. As we started to wonder how many explorers they could possibly have crammed in to the space behind that false section of wall, we realized that it was nearly time for our train and hurried off before the bricks could slide back into their starting place.
We had just enough time to snap a picture of the real landmark in Bremen, the Stadtmusikanten or City Musicians. The image of a rooster, perched upon a cat, balanced on a dog, resting on the back of a donkey had popped up a few times in the city, but there is a small bronze statue near the centre of town which has become a bit of an icon for the city. There is of course, a story behind the statue. Though not exactly famous in Canada, the statue recalls one of the stories of the brothers Grimm about unwanted animals that flee their owners and head to the city of Bremen to seek their fortunes. (read it here) In the story, the four animals pile on each others backs to reach the window of a house and play their music to frighten away a group of robbers inside the house in order to get inside and get some food. By this point we holding similar thoughts, and hurried to the train station to make our way to Hamburg and a warm supper.
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