Germany: Bremen, Becks and Barrels

I returned to the north, but this time a bit more northeast, to visit Bremen. I think the motivation for going here is that I had been with my family when I was young and I wanted to see it again because I had a vague recollection of liking it. I still like it. It took a couple of trains to get here but it was worth it. I walked around the old town and enjoyed the atmosphere. I thought I was galleried out but as I started to explore beyond the old town I came upon a gallery and it was excellent. I hate to say it but when a gallery has an IKEA style arrangement, where they tell you exactly what order to visit the rooms, suits me so well. Finally, someone just telling me what to do rather than me trying to work it out and this gallery was organised chronologically from the renaissance to modern day. The most modern was a bizarre performance work on fashion and the early renaissance was also a little weird but the works in between were worth the visit! 

Consistent with my 'just tell me where to go so I don't have to make a decision' attitude at the moment, I opted for a walking tour which was well worth it. Walking tours specialise in fun facts and tour guides quickly realise that they have an enthusiastic listener in me so they say lots of stories and I am happy. Another advantage of the walking tour was that they took us to a part of the old town called the Schnoor which is the oldest part of the city. I had tried to find it and failed so it was great to go and I revisited it afterwards because I enjoyed walking around it so much. The houses were so narrow because the taxation was based on the width of the house so they tried to make them as narrow as possible (fun fact) which makes for picturesque streets now. 

Now, the reason for the title of this post, aside from the obvious advantage of alliteration, was that Becks is brewed here and is everywhere and delicious to have with a traditional german fish sandwich or a currywurst (both of which I have sampled) and they are also famous for manufacturing barrels. They are also famous for aviation manufacturing but that didn't work with the alliteration! I am really pleased I included Bremen in my trip and even though there was so much I didn't see, I was happy with how much I was able to explore and discover.