One Friday, our whole group took a day trip to Bremen, which was around a 4-hour train ride west of Berlin. The only thing I had known about Bremen before coming on this trip was the story we learned about in our German 121 class. The story was about how a donkey, dog, cat, and rooster traveled to Bremen to start a musical band. We saw so many tributes to this fairytale all over the city. There were engravings on the walls, animal souvenirs, and this statue that some of the students attempted to reconstruct.
The way the city was built added to its quaint charm. All the roads were made of cobblestone or bricks. The buildings were either made out of brick or were colored. The streets were fun to walk down because there were many narrow alleys, shown below, that were lined with all sorts of chocolate, souvenir, ice cream, and candy shops. The atmosphere was very old-timey and laid back.
One historical thing I found interesting about the city was how dependent the people were on the sea. The men of the town would go out and fish for days in order to put food on the table for their families. Bremen is very close to the North Sea which is why it was such a large port/trade city. While we were there, we even got to go on a boat ride down one of the rivers.
