We’d driven our motorhome Vanni, from Bavaria to Bremen as part of our 6-month road-trip through north-eastern Europe. Now, parked at a camping ground in Bremen for a few days, it was time to get out and have a look at this 1200-year-old town.
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| Marg outside Rathaus (UNESCO), Bremen, Germany |
So we walked into Bremen township and discovered that it is compact and quite beautiful. Our first stop was the Marktplatz (market place). It is surrounded by the striking Rathaus (town hall) which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, St Petri Cathedral, and other ornate buildings.
We also saw many statues, artworks and souvenirs about the Town Musicians of Bremen (a donkey, a cockerel, a dog and a cat riding piggyback) made famous by the Brothers Grimm.
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| Leigh in the Schnoor quarter, Bremen, Germany |
Then we visited the quaint Schnoor quarter a maze of tiny lanes lined with narrow timber-framed houses from the 15th and 16th centuries. Nearby was the interesting Böttcherstrasse quarter which is full of Expressionist style architecture.
The next morning, we caught a little ferry that took us to the other side of Bremen’s river. Suddenly, the ferry started spinning in tight circles making us quite dizzy. We think the driver was showing off for the TV crew that was on board, but were very relieved when it stopped!!
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| Bremen Universum Science Centre, Germany |
We really enjoyed Bremen, then a few days later on the drive out of the city, we stopped to view Bremen’s amazing Universum Science Museum which looks like a giant space ship. It was stunning.
From Bremen, we drove south-east to Hannover. This interesting city dates back to 1100, but unfortunately, much of historic Hannover was destroyed during the 2nd World War. Since then, many of the most notable buildings including the old town hall, the opera house, the Marktkirche and several other churches have been reconstructed, and around them, Hannover has grown into a modern industrial city.
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| Marg in front of the Neues Rathaus, Hannover |
It was very busy there and we couldn’t find parking for our big motorhome. Instead, we satisfied ourselves with a thorough drive around and a few quick photos, seeing the Neues Rathaus (“New” Town Hall - opened in 1913), a lake surrounded by interesting public art, a remarkable office building that looks like a haphazard stack of glass boxes, and various other architectural delights.
Our next stop was Hildesheim, which was founded in 815.
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| Marg in front of half-wooden guild houses in Hildesheim, Germany |
Hildesheim has an historic market place surrounded by some very beautiful half-wooden buildings, like the Butchers’ Guildhall (1529), the Wernersches house (1606), and the Stadtschänke (Old City Tavern - 1666). We also liked the 13th century Gothic style town hall, the Tempelhaus, and the Rolandhaus.
Hildesheim has two UNESCO World Heritage Sites that we enjoyed seeing: the 11th century St. Michael's Church, and St. Mary's Cathedral, which has a "Thousand-Year-Old Rosebush" which is apparently the world's oldest living rosebush.
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| Golden views of the German countryside |
Driving to our next stop through the German countryside in spring was interesting. While much of the land is still fairly bare, some areas are showing the beautiful bright green of new growth and the dazzling yellow of daffodils and rapeseed.
We were headed to Braunschweig, but ended up 30 minutes further on in Wolfsburg, because somehow, we missed the Braunschweig turn-off. We found a lovely campground in Wolfsburg so we stayed a few days to rest. It rained most days, so we read, and caught up on computer time. Eventually, the weather cleared so we joined the locals in a stroll around the Allersee (a “see” is a lake).
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| Leigh-Braunschweig’s Happy Rizzi Building |
When we returned to Braunschweig, we found some very interesting architecture. We especially liked the modern ‘Happy Rizzi House’ which is an architecturally extravagant sculpture/apartment designed by New York artist James Rizzi.
Then we found the local stellplatz (motorhome park). It was a great place to stop for the night being surrounded by the River Oker and parklands, with free parking, and electricity at 1 Euro for 8 hours. Later, we found that our neighbour had mistakenly put his 1 Euro coin in our electricity meter, so we gained 8 free hours of power! We offered him a euro but he generously refused it.
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| Marg at a guild house in Brunschweig, Germany |
The stellplatz was an easy 20-minute walk into the city centre, so we headed to the old centre and saw historic buildings in Castle Square, several half-timbered guild houses, the market, and the little cobblestoned streets around the Maginkirche.
We stopped for lunch at a little side street café called Mutter Habenicht’s (Mother Hubbard’s), and had Fleischkäse mit 2 Spiegeleiern (meatloaf with 2 eggs) and Hoppel Poppel (Potatoes with ham and scrambled eggs). Delicious!
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| Magdeburg Die Grüne Zitadelle |
Moving on the next morning we set out for Magdeburg and Brandenburg. However, our GPS had other ideas and took us in a few circles before we finally headed in the right direction. As a result, we only saw little bits of Magdeburg.
The when we drove to Brandenburg, the traffic was horrific. Eventually we fought our way out of town through little side streets and onto the main road. Deciding to skip Brandenburg, we drove on toward Berlin. But our story about Berlin is in the next blog.
This blog describes part of our 6-month motorhome trip around northern and eastern Europe, that began in Prague.