Bremen, although a great city, is not touristy. At. All. I found very minimal information before I went (hell I even looked in the library for info) so I was a little dubious (but excited) to visit. Here’s my guide to the city, so you can make the most of it too.
A trip to Germany had been well overdue. Since I was about 12 it had been high on my bucket list (unlike everyone else’s Eiffel tower wish) but there just hadn’t been the right time. We needed to get away & looked into going to wales or peak district, but I found flights to Bremen for £50 return (for both of us) so it was a no-brainer.
Firstly, Bremen is northwest Germany, pretty close to the Dutch border. I have a friend in Groningen, Holland, which is only 1.5 hours away so we figured we could fly to Bremen, explore there, and then go on to Holland to spend time with Valerie. That wasn’t the only reason though – Although I want to visit places such as Berlin, I didn’t want to go to the obvious touristy area, I wanted the authentic experience 😂 and the fact I couldn’t find any info on Bremen sealed the deal.
Bremen airport has two terminals and is about 1.2km from the city center. We decided to be cheapskates and save money by walking, took us about half an hour and we were pacing it because it was dark and cold however you can get a tram that goes directly into the city.
We stayed in the ibis styles hotel, which we actually booked through ‘Ryanair rooms’, which is essentially like another form of booking.com owned by Ryanair, but if you book through them you get a percentage back in flight vouchers. So roughly £50 a night accommodation meant you would get £5 in Ryanair credit. I did some research & some comparing and there’s no difference in price, so I’m not complaining! 🤷
A river runs alongside Bremen, so there is a really nice waterfront path to walk along (also known as the Schlachte Embankment), which is where we found the most amazing all you can eat continental breakfast buffet for 11 euros each.
It was called Cafe & Bar Celona, and is a very popular place to go, so make sure you go early to get a table. We found out after attempting to translate the menu for 20 minutes that there was in fact an English menu, so save yourselves a bit of time and ask for that 😂.
The buffet was just a m a z i n g. They had all different types of bread & croissants you could help yourself to, and then they had an impressive selection of meats and cheeses. Naturally, I got a bit of everything (got to get your money’s worth) but I am a firm believer in trying everything because life would be boring if you didn’t 🤷
However we discovered what looked like an uncooked piece of sausage meat..
After staring at it for a while I figured I should probably check it was edible and decided to ask about it 😅 Turns out you cut into the plastic outer, then spread it on your bread, and eat it with onions 🤔 I tried it, it was almost like pate but it definitely seemed like eating raw sausage meat (and I’m still not even sure what it was 🤢) but hey, definitely try everything 😂.
We carried on along the waterfront, walking past some big ships docked there, and then headed towards the center. This led us through to the tourist information which was also called the ‘glockenspiel’ a popular landmark in Bremen. We discovered a traditional sweets shop down one of the little alleyways and actually watched them making the sweets with a traditional press. Despite not eating sugar this really was mesmerizing to see, and to look at all the different creations.
We reached the main square, featuring the famous cathedral (St. Petri Dom) and the town hall (Rathaus in German). Unfortunately, I only found out after our trip that you can have a guided tour of the building, which would have been amazing.
The city layout means that the ‘center’ (cathedral etc) is down one end, and the rest of the main city carries along the street (which has the tram lines in the middle) with lots of diverts & passageways. We found the Saturday market, which was bustling with locals purchasing their specialty items like meats and cheeses and wreaths for their doors. I loved that most of them were plain, so you could decorate them yourself making each one unique.
We wanted to get some bratwurst (famous German sausage) so we searched until we discovered the Lloyd passage (an indoor shopping mall area) which had a bratwurst restaurant in it called ‘Joh. Keuneke’. I definitely recommend a visit here because the sausages were amazing and so were the fries 😍 plus European mayonnaise is so much better than English. It was so strange to find that I had to speak in German more than once because they didn’t know English, something I usually take for granted, but it was actually good to be forced to speak it. I learn’t German at school so luckily I could just about remember enough to order food etc.
As you can see we visited when the Christmas markets were on, so the place was packed with lots of different stalls selling anything from sweet or savoury foods to all types of craft. We bought a fresh salty pretzel from the embankment markets, and a half metre long bratwurst (!) from the central markets. It wasn’t even your typical market stall items either, there were handmade items such as wooden dolls, accessories made from 100% wool, nuts & biscuits and every european speciality you could think of.
The Germans go all out with the Christmas markets and I honestly take my hat off to them. It’s so magical to see, and the best bit was that it wasn’t packed with heaps of tourists and selfie sticks, you could quite easily wander around and appreciate everything there. I guess that’s one of the biggest benefits of going to a non-touristy area, you really do get the best experience.
I had the best time in Bremen, and it far beat my expectations. I really do recommend going there for the Christmas markets especially and generally, the flights are cheap there too. It may not reach the list of ‘top German markets’ on conde
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