to lighten this a bit.

So, after five days in Bremen, what can I say?

It's a winderful place. Peaceful, fresh, beautiful, quiet... If you understand hollydays as sunbathing and swimming all day, it might not be your place. If you understand hollydays as a time to see as many famous places as possible... it might not be your place either. But if you are content with seeing beautiful architecture, learning a pair of interesting historical facts, walking through endless green parcs, wandering through alien streets until their are as yours as your own city, enjoying a quite time in a parc bench, reading or writting or drawing, or even swimming a bit under a partly cloudly sky, then it's your city.

The marketplatz is the most impressive part of the city, specially in the mornings when they lay the market and everytjing is covered in flowers and colorful fruit stalls, but the most charming place is the Schnoor, the ancient crafters neighbourghood, reconstructed after WWII (as most cities in Germany). For long walks (or even bike rides), the Bürgerpark is the perfect place, with all it's grass and trees and benches and sheeps and cows and everything. On top of said park there's a lake (Staadwalsee) where you can swimm and there's even a "beach" for little children. This lake is five minutes from the Science Museum (Universum), which we visited, for we are geeks. Then the Rododendrumpark is also a pretty place, with the botanical garden and the rosegarden inside it. We couldn't visit the übersee museum, though, but they say it's quite impresive too. Next time, then.

People in Bremen are very patient (specially since we barely knew a few words in german) and really nice. They are proud of their city (they remembered me of Barcelona sometimes) and are glad when you show interest in it. But I noticed that, unlike other places I've been, they are not very open.

Oh, and we could find depictions of the four street musicians everywhere. I'm a sucker for fairy tales, so you can imagine I squeed quite a bit most of the time. ^_^

We also spent a day in Hamburg, which I didn't like that much but is beautiful also. But Hamburg impressed me deeply because of their Saint Nicolas church. Destroyed during "Gomorrah operation" in the WWII, they never reconstructed it, as a reminder of what war means, as a reminder of what Nazis did to others. It's for the victims of bombings from the allies, but also a memorial for all people deported and dead in the camps. It imoressed me because they were not shy in blaming themselves and accepting their shame, which you don't see often in any goverment involved in wars and death and repression. That's how you learn from war, not blaming the rest and hiding your hand everytime you throw a stone. We should ALL learn from them.

Finally, if you ever go to Bremen, please, don't be content with seeing their impressive Rathauss and Cathedral, but wander a bit. You'll find a cute, fairetale like town, full of nice people and bikes.

I wish I could have stayed one more day...

Oh, wait, I did!! Yup. We had a mistake with dates when we booked our plane back, so we had to come back one day later. mar insist on blaming herself, but its a was a mutual mistake and even if it was not I could see the rose garden thanks to her mistake so... not bigger problem than some 35 euros more in eating and sleeping a bit.

P.S.- As our plane was out really early in the morning we decided not to sleep all night, so we went to the cinema, to watch Harry Potter (in english, we are not THAT crazy). I'll talk about it in its own post.