International Destinations

Bremen and Bremerhaven: gems of Germany’s northwest

By Sandy Campbell

Photos by Sandy Campbell

Among the 16 states that make up the German Federation is the free city state of Bremen. Its harbour, Bremerhaven, is separated from the main city by 60 kilometres of Lower Saxony.

On a recent visit to Germany, I visited these two cities in the country’s northwest.

Bremen is an ancient city and around the year 1000, was the centre for the Roman Catholic Church in Northern Europe. The Archbishop of Bremen had within his charge, parishes from Greenland to Latvia.

The Church of St. Pius in Bremen is a huge double-towered church, which has had many renovations and additions over the hundreds of years.

During one excavation, graves of archbishops were found, and the burial clothing is now on display in the church museum. There are also ancient texts and coins, but it is the textile collection that is considered to be the treasure.

Bremen’s old town is made up of well-restored and maintained buildings dating back through the centuries. The Beck’s Brewery restaurant on the Market Square in the old town is a great place to have a traditional meal and drink while soaking up the view of the ornate buildings around the square.

Before leaving the old town, everyone has to make a stop at the statue of the Town Musicians of Bremen – a rooster, cat, dog and donkey. The statue is so much a symbol of Bremen that the folk tale of how the animals defeated robbers was printed in the back of the hotel services information booklet. The donkey’s shiny front legs are a testament to the number of times tourists have rubbed them for luck.

Bremen has many parks that parallel canals built through the city. Paved paths along the banks are heavily used. Residents fish from the canals and birdwatchers will find many species on the water and in the trees.

If you walk down to the river, there is a pleasant promenade at the water level and then another on the terrace above, lined with blocks of beer gardens. Some of the pubs have blankets to keep customers warm at the outdoor tables in the evening.

We visited at a time when many students were celebrating graduation. The parties went on all night and many people caught the first train home at 5:30 the next morning.

Trams service most areas of Bremen and make the trip between the airport and the downtown in just 11 minutes. The railway station is across the square from the tram stop making the transportation changes easy. The train will take you directly to Bremerhaven, 40 minutes to the north, at the mouth of the Weser river. Because the two locations are one jurisdiction, your train ticket is good for the remainder of your trip by bus in Bremerhaven.

Bremerhaven boasts a number of international agencies and institutions. Among its attractions are the collections of the German National Maritime Museum. These include a medieval ship dug out of the harbour and restored through a process that included soaking it for 15 years. The museum also has several ships and a submarine at anchor in the harbour.

Nearby is the amazing Klimahaus, a new science museum dedicated to climate change. The museum is built at longitude eight degrees east, and the permanent exhibition includes pavilions for various places along the meridian, including Alaska and Samoa.

Each puts you into the local ecosystem and uses a series of video interviews with real people, telling stories of the effects of climate change. Parts of the lush Samoan exhibit were built by Samoan craftsmen brought to Germany for the construction. The Antarctic exhibit allows visitors to experience the cold and wind of points far south on the meridian.

Just beyond the Klimahaus is the German Emigration Centre, another relatively new exhibit hall, marking the point where millions of Europeans started their journey to the New World.

At the beginning of the tour, each visitor receives a “boarding pass” with a person’s image and dates of departure. Mine was of a female Jewish doctor, who was stripped of her right to practise in Germany and emigrated in 1939.

At several stations through the exhibit – before boarding, on board the ship, at arrival in New York and in a genealogy hall – my swipe card accessed audio recordings of parts of “my” emigrant’s story. This approach allows visitors to connect more personally with the story.

In the genealogy hall, visitors can search for ancestors who may have left Europe through this port. One of the most striking things about this museum is that these stories are told about those who left from the point of view of those who were left behind. Canadians of European descent know the same stories, but from the rather happier point of view of those who “arrived and survived.”

Pub food in Bremerhaven is an easy dinner alternative and relatively inexpensive, as is the beer. Notable is the “white herring,” which is pickled and served cold with dollops of sour cream.

There are, of course, many upscale dining alternatives from excellent Chinese fare at the China Restaurant, to traditional German cookery in the restaurant on the Seute Deern, a three-masted ship docked by the Maritime Museum.

The finale of the visit was a 30-kilometre trip northwest from Bremerhaven to Cuxhaven. Here we took an 11-kilometere horse-drawn wagon tour across the Wadden Sea, a shallow body of water connected with the North Sea, to the island of Neuwerk, which is part of the Wadden Sea National Park. Even though the tide was out, there were still gullies to be crossed where the water was up to the horses’ bellies.

This was definitely a toque, mittens, and rain-gear trip, but fun. We were given blankets to cover our knees and then a rubber tarp to fasten over the blankets against the water splashed up by the trotting horses.

Many people also chose to make the trek on horseback or on foot, in spite of mussel and oyster beds that are difficult to cross and the chilly water temperatures.

Returning to Bremen for the flight home, the reasonably priced Atlantic Hotel Airport proved a convenient place to stay. The hotel is located across the street from the departures area of the airport, with the tram stop in between. The Restaurant BLIXX on its eighth floor supplies a good meal and an excellent view of the airport.

In a visit of few days to Bremen and Bremerhaven, it’s hard to do more than just scratch the surface of the many things to do and see. This area is definitely on my “return visit” list.

If you go:

Bremen

Atlantic Hotel Airport http://www.atlantic-hotels.de/airport/hotel-english/

Star Inn Hotel Columbus http://www.starinnhotels.com/de/bremen-columbus/

Bremerhaven

Seute Deern http://www.seutedeern.de/

Klimahaus http://klimahaus-bremerhaven.eu/

German Emigration Centre http://www.dah-bremerhaven.de/

German Maritime Museum http://www.dsm.museum/edsm.htm

Cuxhaven

Wadden Sea National Park http://www.niedersachsen-tourism.de/en/aktiv-vital/wasserreich/wasser-erlebnisse/wadden-sea/