Geoff and I managed to get an unreserved seat each but the others were made to move from their seats so had to stand most of the way. They had a very different view of the trip to us. While I was occupied with admiring the greenery of the landscape and the interesting backyards and very tidy and organised allotments they were more concerned with holding on and having a view of peoples luggage. The allotments are a wonderful bit of whimsy contradicting what we expect from organised German populations. They are mostly very neat and tidy, often have cute little cottages on them, beautiful gardens, the odd umbrella or other decoration,comfortable garden chairs and look like mini holiday houses which maybe they are.
Duncan thinks the English could learn a lot from the German allotments. A wee bit like the difference between Mercedes or BMW and Reliant?
Both Oldenburg and Bremen Railway stations are beautiful big old style buildings but the outlook when you leave the station at Bremen is dull, architecturally dowdy and ugly. A result of some quick and shoddy but necessary building which went up straight after the war and has not been replaced. Once you get behind this ugly façade there are some truly beautiful spaces and places.  |
| Bremen |
 |
| Oldenburg |
We walked towards the cathedral – followed the crowd--- to a classics car rally/ display in the main square. Worth watching for a short while but there was more to explore.
The cathedral stands grandly over a square and on the steps was a small group of people with banners on their weekly vigil highlighting the situation in Gaza. I spoke to one of the group and he indicated they are there every week, get a range of comments from the Anti-Semitic ones to the far right bullying, to people just wanting to talk about the situation. It was good. Bremen is also famous for its tall 14th Century statue of Roland, who stands for the civic freedoms of a city, especially the freedom to trade independently.Read more: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/germany/bremen-city/sights/squares-plazas/markt#ixzz39PlYNpnj
We left Ellie to her warm-up and followed Duncan beyond the cathedral core of the city, across another area of mediocre architecture to an the Schoor area of very quaint houses and extremely narrow streets. “The neighbourhood owes its name to old handicrafts associated with shipping. "The alleys between the houses were often associated with occupations or objects: There was an area in which ropes and cables were produced (string = Schnoor) and a neighbouring area, where wire cables and anchor chains were manufactured (wire = Wieren).” There were a lot of people as it is obviously one of the “sights “but it was worth it. According to Lonely Planet it was once an old fishing area and then a red light district but is now a treasured quaint part of a city which had a lot of its original buildings destroyed. The buildings in the streets are not really fancy but some do have typical paste and iron decorations and some also have the large hook near the roof to assist in hauling big things up to the top floors. These small narrow houses have small and steep stairs which make access harder but would keep you fit.
It is a worthwhile place to explore and at least one place has good coffee and very good cake.
I liked some of the crafts in the small shops and some of the knitting was particularly tempting but I decided to take photos for inspiration and do the knitting myself. We shall see what happens but at least I saved the money!!.
Everywhere in these shops there are souvenirs depicting the musicians of Bremen, a dog, a cat and a rooster. Duncan gave us a very passable rendition of the Grimm Brothers Fairy tale.
This 1980’s version of the story by Nigel Hawthorne sounds much better than some of the American ones. The Muppets did a version of the story with slight variations from the traditional.
The cathedral, the Dom St Petri where the choir was performing is large and we were not sure exactly where we needed to sit. None of us are particularly frequent church attendees and were not keen to intrude on others devotions but we did want to get a good seat. The church is Protestant Lutheran but we were not sure how intensive the service would be especially as we were told the minister would be conducting a service of mass.
The service was simple, or I assume it was as it was conducted in German. It was also very short and while I had been thinking that it was a beautiful place to sit in for a while we did not need to. The choir sang a range of things and it was wonderful. In Geoff’s words “the highlight of his holiday thus far”. The minister spoke and even not understanding what he was saying you could tell he was being enthusiastic about the young people and their sound. The singing continued out in the Bible garden and although not as good as inside it was still a real pleasure.
Sustenance was required so we headed towards the river and lunch walking through some more of the older streets. There were large numbers of tourists, maybe local ones or like us from far afield but it was still possible to enjoy the grandeur of the buildings and marvel at the detail on some of them. It is always tempting to listen into the spiel a guide is giving his group and you learn things. The area in the pictures below is the Bottcherstrasse and according to guides is an example of expressionism. The 110m-long street was commissioned in 1931 by Ludwig Roselius, a merchant who made his fortune by inventing decaffeinated coffee and founding the company Hag in the early 20th century.
Read more: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/germany/bremen-city/sights/neighbourhoods-villages/bottcherstrasse#ixzz39PqOsYob
The river bank was busy in a wonderful sunny Saturday way. Bars, cafes people. Our personal guides were hunting out an appropriately German experience for us to indulge in. En route to that we passed a Shanty choir performing. Their music was lively and they looked very happy. Some of those watching were even happier and one at least was completely away with the fairies. German beer or something else? The music is perfect for that kind of environment and you can move away from it when you lose interest in it.
We found an appropriate beer and sausage place with seats. Some of us were happier with our food than others and some of us were very happy we had not chosen what other people had. The white sausages, Weisswurst did not look good but Murray strongly declared they were tasty and with the addition of the appropriate mustard very good. Follow up research on sausage eating in Germany and we did look into this quite intensively, shows that the mustard be it sweet, hot, spicy, coarse or smooth can really make or break the sausage. More on this on later posts. Delicacies have to be treated with care and not overindulged in at any one time. On this occasion the beer, atmosphere and company were excellent and I loved my mushrooms and potato. We didn’t try pinkel – a combination of tasty sausage and curly kale – maybe next time!
And there is always bread --- so many very sustaining varieties and that does not include the sweet ones.
Feeling satisfied we wandered along the waterfront on a mission to see a market which we did not really find… I had heard of the amazing flea markets in Europe and there were a few mini ones which looked more like small car boot sales with no car boot. Who would want any of this stuff? It does make you think about how much you actually have compared to many people.
The train trip back was much less packed and more relaxing. On arrival back at Oldenburg Geoff and I rode off to see if we could get the bikes adjusted. We lost our way a bit en-route but the shop was shut anyway so we made tracks for the Oldenburg harbour where the others were relaxing. The harbour is pretty at this time of the year and there are a number of hotels/bars with outdoor seating to enjoy the view. A range of boats in the harbour which is more like a canal, one of many in the area since a large amount of the Oldenburg area has been drained. I found a book for Duncan in a second hand book shop which had paintings of old Oldenburg showing how much water had been part of its history. Geoff and I think the book shop owner was very happy as we bought 50% of his English language content and increased his income for the day by a goodly sum of Euros. In the Natural History museum there are large maps which show how the land/water ratio has changed over time. The peat beds around the area are very deep and a display of one in the museum incorporates a burial site for an early human. A worthwhile place to visit even if you are not into buried bog people.
When I visited it they, the State Museum for Nature and Mankind, had a fantastic display supporting the 200 year anniversary of the “ Schlossgarten”. On two levels and with beautiful wooden stencil/cut out screens Scherenschnitte and displays. They would have been stunning in anyones home and one of the curators I spoke to was hoping she could take a few home. Reminded me of the elderly twin sisters Geoff and I met in the Interlaken Camping ground in 2010. They were at least 70 years old, lived in a mountain house and had learned to cut the paper silhouettes from their Uncle and now gained an income from selling their work all of which had a religious theme. they were on holiday and sleeping in their station wagon as the camping ground would not let them erect a tent too close to the river. Grown up Heidi’s.
Our time near the water was much more relaxing than that of the early inhabitants of the area and we all tried out the riverside huts. I had been wanting to do this since I saw and laughed at the first one I saw in the supermarket.
Our destination for the evening was again the food and wine festival in the centre of the city – the Oldenburg Kocht 2014. This time all of us went, found a seat, wandered off and found food and wine or beer to fit the occasion and sat down happy to listen to the music. Then the rain came. In deluges. We had an umbrella, some of us had jackets, but Murray did not but kept smiling. We moved closer and closer to those on the next table and the tables moved closer and closer to the stage as the rain encroached and the water ponded on the roof. One young staff member came round with a big stick, stood on the tables and did “a Geoff” as he released torrents of water onto the ground. Very impressive.
Apart from the weather it was a fantastic event. Small plates of delicious food from a variety of high standard Oldenburg restaurants. Good wine and beer and small guide books which gave you details of the offerings and which had spaces for you to write your own assessments. Because the food was in small portions you could try things from various places, spot the neighbours wee plate, that’s yum, find out where it was from and trot off to get some for yourself. A sense of community enhanced by good food, wine and atrocious weather. Hamburgers were in evidence from multiple vendors and our team of connoisseur tasters declared them very good.
There was also music and for this evening it was a very cool trio of women, Sweet Sugar Swing --- singing and performing Andrews Sisters vintage music and they were VERY GOOD. They had the outfits, the voices, the style and for a lot of their stint they had a very keen elderly female fan who had the whole square smiling. It was wonderful.
You could forget the rain and the weather – or those of us under shelter could. Murray may have still been aware of it!. The event and the music did start us thinking what music we would have as our choices for the very select list Duncan is compiling for the wedding in January. He and Ellie are a bit picky and there are a few very good pieces which will not be permitted. Possible yes to Moonshadow but probable no to House of the Rising Sun. huh!!!
It felt like a whole weekend but there was still Sunday to go. I think I could really get into this city style of life. Everything happening just a small bike ride or walk down the road.
We were heading off the next day towards Mont Blanc via Wuppertal and cousins.
Oldenburg had been a wonderful place to spend time and get too know just a little.
We had watched and felt the vibe of the St Christopher's day parade and then wandered the streets of the town and biked in the environs exploring local bike ways – very close but feeling distant. The festivities around St Christopher’s day were more than I had ever seen in Christchurch. I had never heard of the day or the reasons for it.
We had visited other places including Celle, a beautiful town about 1.5 hours from Oldenburg. Driving on a Sunday on the autobahn was slow and more congested than expected. Thanks Duncan. The area is so green though, but a blue-green not a bright green, and as flat as the proverbial pancake. I kept thinking of tanks rolling down these roads. There were many forests, some with incredibly spindly trees and many christmas tree farms. Odd things stands out, such as the chicken processing farm in the middle of what felt like a tranquil forest!!
Celle has a large number of post and beam houses with plaster infill – what I normally think of as Tudor but I am no architect. There is a large Schloss garden in the centre which was beautiful to walk in and included an Apiary centre. The shops in the town were all closed as it was sunday and this is true for a large number of German towns. Cafes open but not necessarily a lot more. The cafe part was useful though and allowed us to enjoy a Rosti with spiegeleir, (fried eggs) for Geoff; Hawaii toast for Duncan – A German food tradition since the 1950’s; Apple cake wrapped in paper to take home in case of delays on the motorway but it did not get eaten.
We had eaten widely – one of my real pleasures of travelling and Duncan and Ellie certainly added to my foodie experience right from the first night of German sausages. Excellent.
We explored the main Schloss museum and even though it was all in German you could still understand the way the German empire had changed in size and could see some evidence of the effects of the most recent war in this region. I was reading a book called “The Nazi Officers Wife” while I was in Oldenburg and that reinforced the effects of the war time on me especially the impact of slave labour and the thought of "how much did the locals know of what was going on at the time". So many layers to the information in the museum including wartime history, ancient geography, old political history and costumes and beautiful wood carving. Small but worth a revisit I believe. But next time I will have a English/German dictionary with me.
One museum at least is left for next time --- the computer museum. Some of us are interested in a visit.
We had special trip to Hannover for Ellie to look at wedding dresses and she found one which is absolutely beautiful and I felt very priviliged to be able to be involved even though we live so far apart. Bubbles and cheese to celebrate with a very special person. It was a wonderful day and memory.
We had pictures in our heads of where and how they live and that is a wonderful thing to take home. Thank you.
