Bremen; Wednesday, 25 May, 2005

Last day in Bremen and with still a lot to visit and do. First stop of the morning, after checking out of the hotel and dropping my bags off in the left luggage lockers at the station, was a walk around the former defences of the city. The centre of the city rests on it’s own island that is totally surrounded by the river and canals. The whole of the route round, which once formed the defences, is now through parks and gardens. After spending almost two hours walking around I caught the tram out to the Focke Museum on the outskirts of town.

The museum shows the history and development of Bremen, with lots of artefacts, especially in the "Magazine" collection which appears to be their entire store of artefacts grouped together by subject and then arranged alphabetically.

After visiting the Focke Museum I caught the tram back into town and visited the Böttcherstrasse a tiny lane in the centre of the city which houses a museum and art gallery that link to each other.

The Roselius house has artifacts and items from Bremens heyday as the centre of Hanseatic trading. The Paula Becker-Modersohn exhibition is an art gallery displaying works by Paula Becker-Modersohn as well as some changing displays of modern art.

After spending a while in the museums it was time to head back to the station to pick up my bags from the luggage lockers and catch the tram out to the airport.

The journey home was relatively uneventful - if you ignore the pilot on the flight from Bremen to Amsterdam trying for a land speed record on the taxiways of Schipol airport. After warning us that it would take about 10 minutes to reach the terminal (and it having taken that long when I had flown in from Heathrow a few days earlier) he succeeded in making it from the runway to stand in about 3 minutes, overtaking several cars passing on the nearby motorway!!