Got a Regioticket at Dammtor Bahnhof, took the first train to the Hauptbahnhof. According to the flyer, I could have done this yesterday, had I wanted to wait until after rush hour. It also turns out you can only travel within the region, not anywhere in Germany. So Berlin wasn’t a choice anyway, though Lübeck was, also Hannover and Braunschweig.
What I especially like about this sign is the icon.
Sat with three Afghans on the train, grandfather (maybe), father, and a son of about 8. They opened up a duffel bag and served themselves breakfast, the men contenting themselves with tea. Politely, they offered me a portion, and politely, of course, I declined. They were traveling on a Wochenendekarte, going all the way to Aachen, which was going to take them all day. They were staying a week. The guard growled at them that they were supposed to write the number of travellers on the Karte; the grandfather said, »Zwei ein Viertel.« The son tried to talk with me, but couldn’t understand my amerikan accent. The grandfather apologized that adults learn to adapt to accents.
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Bremen Hbf and its Vorplatz is a scene of massive reconstruction. Made my way out of the area, first passing a park that was once a city wall, a zigzag pond with a windmill that may today be a pub. (But the web says it’s a museum.) |
The musician legend permeates Bremen, in one form or another. Here, the horn player, with a little help from his best friend, has clearly created hog heaven.
The kids love it, too!
The old city is the site of a picturesque market. Broke my vow not to go into any churches, but didn’t take any pictures.
The map shows an Alte Neustadt (or is it a Neue Altstadt?), which led me to cross the Weser and check out that area. Waste of time.
Came back, wandered along the zig-zag waterway, came out at the Osterdeich. There was a junk market on the riverbank. Amazing the things people will try to sell. Went back into the old town. Streets not very busy. I glanced down a side turning and saw the characteristic icon of a pedestrian zone. No particular visible attraction, but if it’s a pedestrian zone, perhaps there’s something special.
Boy, was I right! The Schnoor is a wonderful little area of the real old city. |
The widest of the streets might accept a car, and some streets are narrower than a respectable sidewalk. Some of the passages are so narrow you have to go through them sideways! |
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Great place! The kind of place where you’d expect to find the Institut für niederdeutsche Sprache. |
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And here’s yet another manhole cover for Allison’s collection. (Don’t tell her what Entwässerung means!) |
As I came back into the market area, it turned cloudy and cold and began to rain. 12:30, just too late for a Bremerhaven train. And of course, as soon as I got really hungry, I saw no more Bäckereien. But I wandered past a place with an unusual name: Tendüre. Curious. The sign said Aus dem Lehmofen. Now let’s see: Lehm is clay... Oh, of course! – Tendüre is tandoori! Took me a while – turned around and went back.
I’ll likely miss the next train to Bremerhaven, too, but that’s ok. If it’s still raining when I finish, maybe I’ll just go back to Hamburg. I can eat late or light tonight.
It claims to be Anatolian cuisine – I guess that’s Turkish. Had a big casserole of lamb and veggies, and it was good, if too salty. Didn’t think I could eat all of it, but I did. And an Erdinger Weißbier, served of course in a glass marked Erdinger Weiß. And nice to find a washroom, too – Bremen has pay toilets, and I hadn’t quite reached that level of desperation.
Continental trains don’t have automatic couplers. I have always thought this would be a scary job.
At the station they were announcing disruption of train schedules due to the defusing (I didn’t understand entscharfen until I got home and looked it up) of a Fliegerbombe aus dem Zweiten Weltkrieg somewhere between Osnabrück and Bremen. So the next Bremerhaven train was at 2:52 instead of 2:32. It wasn’t a regional train, but the guard didn’t make difficulties. Almost 4 o’clock when we arrived in Bremerhaven.
There is no sign at the station or in the town of tourist attractions of any kind. Had to hunt to even find a Stadtplan. Streets almost deserted. Decided whatever there was, was likely at the water’s edge, so I went that way.
I passed a man leaning against the wall. He accosted me: »Können Sie mir helfen?« I thought he was a bum asking for a handout, and was ready to blow him off, but no, he was just an old man. I couldn’t understand a thing he said. He wanted me to help him to the next corner. I offered my arm, but nothing less would do than that we interlock arms firmly and hold hands. We shuffled down the block at an excruciatingly slow pace. A woman pulled her kids off to the side of the sidewalk to let us go by. I caught her eye, thanked her with a nod. If she’s a local, she may know this guy.
He had had two heart attacks, his wife died six weeks ago, his children lived in (Spain? – didn’t catch it), and he himself lived in an Altersheim. I expected to find the Altersheim at the next corner, saw nothing there. He disengaged and leaned himself up against the wall. »Sind Sie ok?«
Ja, he would just rest a minute, and then ask the next passer-by for help going further. So he had planned all along, not to overtax my patience. Nice of him. I wished him einen schönen guten Tag, and went on. I think that counts as my good deed for the day.
Let’s see, what do we know about Bremerhaven? Well, the bumpf says the property was only acquired (from Hannover) in 1827, when Bremen decided it needed a deep-water seaport. Operated as a colony for many years, it only acquired the name Bremerhaven when it was merged into Germany’s smallest Bundesland after the second world war. Today, it ships 1.6 million containers per year; 80% of Germany's fish harvest goes through here. At any given time, about 70,000 cars await trans-shipment (an opportunity for just-in-time delivery!). 350,000 tons of bananas enter Europe here every year.
In Hamburg, we saw different spellings for the word quay. Here, it’s Kaje. And a couple of people greeted me with, »Moin!« and »Moin! Moin!.« Thanks, Friedrich, for telling me about that. It’s like »Grüß Gott« in Bavaria.
When the sun came out, it was nice to feel the warmth through my coat. But it was much too cold to take off the coat. Are there really bathing beaches on the north sea?
The waterfront was worth it. Lots of masts and lighthouses. A museum – too late in the day to be worthwhile. Signs on its steps strictly forbidding skateboard and roller blades, which didn’t deter the skateboarders and roller-bladers.
And there was an U-Boot, the Wilhelm Bauer. DM4 – why not? It's a Diesel-electric out of world war II. Finished just before the war ended, it never saw action, but was scuttled instead. Salvaged in 1957, it served the oceanographic research community for some years before being retired to become a museum. |
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Here's the driver’s seat and the dashboard. Not much of a view out the windshield, though. |
The depth gauge goes to 400M, and I heard the attendant telling someone the Boot really would go that far down.
I now understand, and fully agree with, Peter Mößbauer’s disparaging remarks about the shoddiness of its much newer Soviet counterpart that we visited in Copenhagen.
It was built at Blohm & Voss – remember those big drydocks we saw at Hamburg? Blohm & Voss turns out to have built any number of iron sailing ships in previous times, and more recently, U-Boats, destroyers, cruisers, and battleships, including the Bismarck and Tirpitz. Mike immediately points out that they also built aircraft, including the bizarre BV 141.
Just behind the U-Boot is an old bark. Quite a contrast. |
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Starting to get late, so I came back. Good-sized pedestrian zone, but completely deserted. At least it had a pretty church. |
What I liked about this bronze was the kerchief. Suppose someone puts a fresh one on every day? |
I could catch an express train for Bremen and go to Hamburg from there, or I could wait for a train that went to the periphery of the Hamburg S-Bahn later. No more trains to either place for a long, long time. Decided to go for the bird in hand. Going to Bremen would probably offer more opportunities, and might even get me home a little earlier than the direct, but slow, route.
There was a train to Hamburg right away, but it was an European intercity, having started in Chur, Switzerland, and not legal for my Regioticket. But time passes, and the right train eventually came. No more announcements about flying bombs, so I presume they either got the bomb sorted out or re-routed the trains.
In the twilight, the deer came out in the open to graze. Saw probably a dozen before it got too dark. The train went on past the Hamburg Hbf to Dammtor, easy and efficient. Walked back to Binnenalster to shoot up the last of my film on the fountain in the lake.
Dave Hood home
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