TheBoysGoNorth

Hanse-at-it Again

On Thursday and Friday we went throught two Hanesatic cities on our way up to Denmark on Saturday, leaving Germany for at least a week. As a bonus extra on the journey Bremen is the last of the 16 German Lander (states) that we were yet to visit)

Thursday kicked off with a visit to Bauhaus (sort of like a mega B&Q) for a new fridge for Moira and some light (not literally) perusing.

Once we got into Bremen we cycled past the enormous Becks beer factory and ditched the bikes to walk around one of the best preserved medieval city centres in Germany. This started with a faux-medieval alley of Botchestrasse. This was built in the 20s at the height of the Weimar avente guarde art style. Built to represent the Hanseatic brick craft streets (Botcher being barrel maker) but with lot of cool spaceshipesque features like this tower. 

Next we had a classic city wander and enjoyed many of the funky statues that Bremen had to offer. I'm not sure we could get either of our cats to get that close to a dog let alone stand on him! My personal favourite was the UNESCO heritage Roland statue (middle right) who's knees were the basis of a special Hanseatic unit of measurement.

In spite of the lack of museum in Bremen I still got my moneys worth with the extensive plaques around the city.

All parked up out of the city we taught the boys to use their new cat flap. It took Zini somewhat longer than Gari to understand though...

Friday morning predictably started with some Moira maintance in our lovely park up (the 4th time I had been under the bonet so far)

We headed into Hamburg (via a German Halfords equilivent) and soaked up the history although the massive Hamburg museum was sadly closed there was a very interesting exhibit on the GESTAPO in Hamburg and north Germany. This outdoor art exhibit demonstrating the tear in the cities history on the pavement was particularly impressive. 

Hamburg, being a large forward thinking city, had plenty of these experimental art exhibits.

The real reason we went back to Hamburg was for Minatur Wunderland, an enormous site of miniature sites from Germany but also Switzerland, Italy, and further afield like Rio de Jinero. A particular favourite was the Minatur Wunderland inside Minatur Wunderland (middle right) with the world smallest working model railway)

The bulk of Minatur Wunderland was incredibly busy but upstairs there was a realitively empty exhibit on a fictional German town at various stages of history. 

Leaving Hamburg centre at nearly 9pm the boys in the van were getting antsy so we headed on out of the town and found them a nice green spot where they spent the night outside frolicking.



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