After a short overnight visit at my aunt's place in Hamburg I continued my journey towards Amsterdam with a trip to Bremen. My aunt's friend gave me a lift all the way from Hamburg which gave me much more time in Bremen than I had anticipated. The weather was incredible, hot and sunny. I arrived in Bremen (also a city in the Hanseatic League, like Hamburg) shortly after noon. I spent about four hours exploring the Altstadt (old city) with its many small alleys, squares, and bridges. There is a famous story from this city, the four musicians of Bremen. These four musicians were actually a donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster. A church in the Altstadt. One of the better-known alleys of Bremen (I forget the name though). My original intent was to find a hostel in Bremen and continue to the Netherlands the next day, but since I had satisfied my desire to see Bremen by about 4 PM, I decided to try to continue further to Groningen, a city in the North of the Netherlands. If I was unsuccessful I could always stay in Bremen and start over again the next day. Here I am on a bridge on my way out of the city. As I started to leave the city I passed the famous Beck's Brewery. Beck's, by the way, is not Germany's best beer. As luck would have it, I soon found my way back on the Autobahn in the direction of Groningen and the Netherlands. My second ride was a Dutch family on their way back from Poland. I sat in the back with an eight year old who spoke amazingly good English without ever having had any English instruction! He told me he had learned English simply by watching television! So while I was speaking German with his father, I was having quite the conversation in English with the son. He went on to tell me that he never goes outside, all he ever does is stay in and watch television. No wonder his English was so good. My final ride of the day was with two hot Dutch girls who took me to Groningen. I had reached my destination early in the evening. Back to the Main Page - Zurück zur Hauptseite