Bremen - Germany

As mentioned, my weekend trip to Germany included 3 cities... Bremen, Hanover and Hamburg. Bremen was my first destination and also my favourite =) But i have to start telling the story from the beginning.. which is our journey there..

Train ride to Tampere

Everything went well.. right until we arrived at Tampere. Upon arrival, we realised that the train station we intended to stay overnight at closes at 1am. Not only that, i was only prepared for Germany weather and not Tampere night temperatures! So we frantically went around looking for a 24 hr place where we can hang out till 5.15am (where the bus is supposed to take us to the airport).. nothing was open.. not even the police station.. haha yes we tried..

So we found a multi story carpark and hid in the stairwells.. it was a truly miserable way to begin our trip.. We couldn't sleep at all coz it was too cold to sit down for long. Thats not all.. we arrived at the budget terminal only to realise that we were 1/2 hr from opening time.. So we stood outside the closed airport doors in the freezing cold.. sucky morning.

So you can imagine how happy we were when we finally arrived in Bremen! The sun was shining and it was positive degrees. I never did realise i miss the sun so much.

You can tell you're in Germany once you set foot outside the airport. It was exactly how i expected Germany to look like. Audis, BMWs and Mercedes Benz's all around =) And we saw a sign that said "Bremen, City of Trams".. Clean Green, High Tech, Efficient.. We're in Germany!

Bremen Hauptbahnhof (Central Railway Station)

When in Germany... eat Sausages!

And Huge Pretzels

We put our barang barang in our cosy hostel.. which had a nice lounge (where they had this Jason Mraz poster)

Bremen is a really charming little place.. its possible to walk from the railway station and cover the sights in a day or so..

A park between our place and the City Centre

Trams - the main mode of public transport besides bicycles and walking

A l5 min walk and we arrived at the Market Place.. very old and nice.. =)

St Peter's Cathedral

Roland the Knight

The Town Musicians

Entrance to the Bottcherstrasse Street.. a nice alleyway of small shops and restaurants.. lined with public artwork

The street led us from the Market Place to the Waterway..

From the Waterway we headed to this place called the Schnoor.. which was the oldest part of the city.. with little narrow streets and houses.. restored and converted now into nice shops and eating places..

We had traditional Bremen Food (we asked wikitravel).. and of coz.. i had to have my first German Beer.. which was good!

We made our way back after dinner and walked through the city centre again.. here we see the Cathedral at night..

I really like the fact that Bremen isn't too busy or touristy.. the city itself is small enough to cover in a day or 2.. the people are so nice and interested to help you and tell you more about their city.. Oh ya.. not to mention things are so cheap compared to Helsinki!