Ahh, Bremen. It came as a surprise for our first trip to Germany! If you’ve never heard of it, it’s the home of Brother’s Grimm Town Musicians (aka Donkey, Dog, Cat, and Rooster). Other fun facts, it’s located in Northern Germany along the River Weser and also the 11th biggest city in Germany. If you want more of a romantic drum roll introduction, their tourism webpage does a nice little intro for Bremen 😉 .
How’d We End up in Bremen?
Lil Fox, Hedgehog, and I took Kevin for a quick Father’s Day weekend trip. We flew there on a Friday night after school and flew back home on a Sunday. If you think we flirt with insanity, you are probably right. We have one response for you:
Edgar Allen Poe said, “I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.” Sign me up for passionate love affairs with life! For real though, we do have some rhyme and reason for our impulses. We have a pact that we should try out anything at least a couple of times with the kids. Then we are allowed to decide if we do not prefer to do said thing with kids. It gives us a chance to work out the kinks and make a decision based on experience instead of fear. Pretty sure I never rode a bike easily after the first time I tried. After experiencing international travel with the kids a handful of times, we felt comfortable leveling up a bit. Hence the quick trip experiment.
Still…How DID We End up in Bremen?
I would like to say that Kevin always had this lifelong dream of visiting Bremen and I was the most amazing wife in creating this touching Father’s Day experience for him. However, none of that is technically true. This is another situation like how we chose Venice. I did want to take Kevin somewhere for Father’s Day. Looking for affordable flights for the dates we could travel, I focused on Germany. It was a top country Kevin has an interest in exploring. Bremen was a short flight (about an hour) and affordable. The city wasn’t too big and had easy access to/from the airport. On paper, it can’t get much better than that for a quick trip!
It worked out quite nicely in real life too. The local tram connects to Bremen Airport. We could hop on right outside the airport and arrive at the historic city center in 15 minutes and vice versa. No traveling for 1+ hour on public transportation to get to the actual city. That time adds up on a weekend trip!
Even better, we stayed at a hotel within walking distance from the airport. Our flight delayed a couple of hours, meant we didn’t get in until 10 pm. Thank goodness we came from a time zone one hour behind! Also, here is a fun fact. Germany has a quiet-hours rule at night and on Sundays. It’s called Ruhezeit. For real, look it up. Anyways, the eerily quiet evening, made for a peaceful wind-down walk to the hotel before bedtime.
Historic Bremen
The next morning, we took the tram to Bremen’s historic center. Public transportation is the highlight of every trip for Lil Fox, so he was ready to go! We used a self-guided audio tour on the official Bremen website to explore the city center. I can’t remember much of it because we had to do a lot of pausing to talk or corral the kids. It did help us navigate around the historic parts of the city at our own pace.
A few fun memories from this “tour” around the historic center include the marketplace, the Town Hall, the Roland Statue, Böttcherstraße, and the Schnoor District.
Marketplace
The market square, my favorite part of Bremen, was breathtaking. I felt transported to a different place entirely. We spent a lot of time here – coming back frequently. The first time we stood around listening to the audio guide early in the morning before the crowds. We enjoyed seeing it in its peaceful state. It gave us another level of appreciation for it.
Later that date we came back for music. We’ll get to that a bit later on!
Even on Sunday before our flight out, we revisited the Marketplace. We sat down on some steps, had some food, and listened to a street musician play the Spanish guitar. Taking some time to just soak in the ambiance of a place without rushing from site to site felt relaxing. People watching or watching street performers also kept the kids entertained. When we finished, we gave the kids each a Euro to drop into the street musician’s case. We enjoyed the music and were even breaking from conversation to be like “oh I love this song!” The kids loved dropping the coin in the guitar case, smiling, laughing, and running away while they did it.
The market place also has a beautiful cathedral that you can go inside to look at. Look closely at the picture below. You’ll see a cable between the two spires. Someone was tightrope walking between those later in the afternoon as part of the music festival!
The Town Hall & Roland Statue
The town hall is in the Marketplace area just left of the Cathedral. The Town Hall is so beautiful and I loved being able to sit near it, without feeling pressure to take in all the details. It’s also so old, built in the early 1400s! It always enchants us to see how intricate buildings were designed and constructed compared to how they are today. Older buildings have soul and character and feel a bit sacred even if they aren’t religious. The town hall and the Roland Statue out in front of it are UNESCO world cultural heritage sites. If you want to see a virtual tour inside it you can here and here.
Right out front of the Town Hall is the Roland Statue. This is just as old as the Town Hall. It was built in 1404 and the oldest in Germany! Our audio tour told us that the statue is a symbol of freedom. His “long” hair represents freedom too. Long is subjective.
Böttcherstraße
The Böttcherstraße is a narrow pedestrian street that runs between the marketplace and the Weser river. Walking along it you’ll find museums, shops, and the glockenspiel bells. We stopped to admire and listen to the audio tour right in front of a Bonbon shop. The kids were OBSESSED watching the staff members creating long strands of taffy/bonbons and observing the whole process. We also listened to the glockenspiel bells perform at the top of the hour. Quite a treat.
Walking along the Weser River
We walked along the river and there was the largest yardsale type of thing going on. I’m not saying there is no rhyme or reason, but it felt like it when we were walking along the river. It seemed like people could just throw a blanket down and lay out whatever they wanted to try and sell. The things were random. One person had a box of electronic cables, another had a variety of gadgets and gizmos. None of this stuff has prices. It felt so bizarre, but I’m sure feels completely normal for people living in cities where this pop-up flea market type of thing happens.
Schnoor Quarter
The Schnoor Quarter is the oldest district in Bremen and a hodgepodge of little buildings, cafes, inns, and shops. Our understanding is it’s best to take it all in sitting down at a café and exploring all the nooks and crannies of the shops. That was not going to happen with the kids, so we did our best to walk through it appreciating it as much as we could. Along the way, people stand outside of the doors of restaurants saying hello to all the passersby. One gentleman stopped the kids and said “hello and wait a minute.” He disappeared and came back with a bowl of homemade heart-shaped cookies. The kids each got to pick one out and you should have seen their faces. It was such a sweet moment and is one of the top reasons we love exploring new places with our kids. The people are always friendly with them! It was a great way to wrap up our historic tour of Bremen too.
Hoeg Festival
Bremen had its first Hoeg City Summer Festival the weekend we visited. This was a bunch of different music stages spread across Bremen. Listening and dancing to the music, some songs in English, some in German, helped boost the party-pumping level of our weekend.
When the lead singer talked to the audience between songs in German, we just shouted when other people did. I’m quite sure it was something along the lines most musicians use, “Heyyyyyyyyyyyy Bremen…..how are you doing?????????……….I said how are you doing???????????………..Isn’t it a great day to be in Bremen?”
After we listened to the music at the Marketplace, we walked to another music venue. The music wasn’t quite our style but it had a kid crafting table nearby. It’s amusing to watch them have someone talk to them in German. The kids seem fine not understanding someone speaking another language and still interact with them. They just go ahead and figure it out with the person. I love little life lesson reminders like that.
There was an insane playground next to the music venue where kids whip down the slide (it was the fastest old-school slide I’ve ever seen). There was also this intense carousel. Lil Fox kept trying to hop on and off the carousel. Then Hedgehog wanted to as well. That lasted until someone started getting dragged around. It was going FAST. This was a manual carousel that you would likely never see in a playground in the States these days.
German Biergartens & Food
Later that evening, we stopped at a Biergarten along the river for French Fries and beer. We practiced the German phrases we knew we’d need before going in. We try our best to at least attempt the language wherever we go, even if we have to switch to English later. It makes us feel like we are trying to immerse ourselves in the true experience and also be considerate.
I bet it’s so funny to watch our faces once we master the phrases and use them in public. I ordered some fries and the lady understood me (yay for me!). So then she asked me a question. I panicked and froze. Then I said, “English bitte (which means English, please)?” She said, “small or large size.” I was so close! Something is satisfying about being able to complete an exchange in a different language without having the other person (1) notice you don’t know how to speak the language (2) automatically change to English or (3) change to English because you ask if they speak it.
The kids hung out at the picnic table until all the French fries were gone. Then they sat on the ground playing with rocks while we finished our beer and conversation. Good stuff.
I can’t speak much about the German food. We didn’t eat too much of it. We try to cut costs on meals when we travel. It makes it possible to go on frequent trips. Instead of sit-down meals which can add up quickly, we stopped at a grocery store on the way home. We heated some frozen veggies and beans in the microwave at our hotel LOL! It also helps going to a hotel with free breakfast. If you’ve stayed at a European hotel, you may agree that hotel breakfasts tend to be a bit better than American hotel breakfasts. European breakfast buffets have lots of deli meat, assortments of freshly baked bread, hard-boiled eggs, lettuce, tomato, etc. They usually still have some of the typical items like cereal, oatmeal, etc. Before we leave breakfast, we make a quick sandwich wrapped in a napkin so 10 minutes after we leave the hotel and they’re hungry again you can just pop out a sandwich in a napkin! The disappointment on their face is priceless 🙂
Wrapping up Our First Trip to Germany
The next morning, we didn’t have too much time until we needed to head to the airport for our flight home, but we took the tram to the City Center one more time to soak it all in. Bremen’s historic city center is pretty to look at. Having the 15-minute tram ride to the airport made that possible! You go Bremen!
Also, the Bremen airport came in for the win when we flew out. It had a kids’ play area (lifesaver!) while we sat and waited to board our flight. We got home at a reasonable time (minor delays) and while it was long in some ways, and quick in others weekend, it felt pretty manageable. It felt like a good Swashbuckling experience. A small city didn’t put pressure on us to see or do everything in one quick weekend.
