Seasonal Views of Bremen 2014

Heading for the Christmas Market. In the background you can see Bremen townhall and the St. Petri Dom church. In the front, you’ve got Christmas lights in the shape of the Bremen town musicians at the entrance to the main shopping street Obernstraße. The lines crisscrossing the photo are the contact wires for the tram.

Bremen’s Renaissance townhall, a Unesco World Heritage site, with the Church of Our Lady in the background and the Christmas market in the foreground.

The giant Roland statue on the market square overlooks a stand selling gingerbread hearts. The Roland depicted here is the heroic knight from the “Chanson de Roland”. According to an old legend, the Roland statue guarantees Bremen’s independence.

A look across the roofs of the Christmas market at the Romanesque St. Petri Dom, the city’s main cathedral. The modern building on the right is the seat of the Bremen state parliament, a rather unfortunate 1960s design.

Here is the state parliament building again, with a giant nutcracker adding some seasonal cheer.

A giant Christmas tree stands in a corner of the market square.

Gilded puttos adorn the Baroque guild hall “Schütting”.

Otto von Bismarck, the iron chancellor, overlooks the Christmas market from his plinth next to the St. Petri Dom church.

These market stands are almost exact reproductions of notable buildings in the medieval Schnoor neighbourhood. The originals are maybe 500 meters away.

This beautiful life-size nativity scene sits nestled against the massive walls of the St. Petri Dom.

A seasonally decked out ferris wheel with the former headquarters of the Bremer Bank, now a Commerzbank branch in the background.

The “Happy Sailor”, a vintage carousel from the 1960s, is something of a Bremen institution. The regular design has been updated for Christmas.

This animatronic moose sings Christmas carols and is one of the highlights of the Christmas market.

The Bremen town musicians from the Grimm brothers’ fairytale have left their mark all over the city. Here is a modern fibreglass statue of the town musicians reading, while sporting the colours of the local football club Werder Bremen. Note the massive Christmas tree in the background.

And once again, the Bremen town musicians in festive dress.

Town musicians the third, this time silhouetted as Christmas lights in front of the St. Martini church.

Originally, the Christmas Market was confined only to the market square and neighbouring St. Petri churchyard, but in recent years it has spilled out across the city, such as this pirate themed market along the river Weser.

Pirates need a ship and luckily the “Admiral Nelson”, a restaurant vessel, is moored at the Weser quay.

This stall by the riverside sells birdhouses. In the background, you can see the Museum Weserburg, a modern art museum. The highrise building in the far background is the headquarters of the chocolate and coffee manufacturer Kraft Jakobs Suchard on the other side of the river.

More evidence that the Christmas market has spilled out all over the city is provided by this giant Christmas pyramid in front of Bremen central station.

This stand inside Bremen central station sells doughnuts. Unfortunately, whoever set this up was seriously spelling challenged and misspelled doughnuts/donuts as “donazz”.

Not really Christmassy, just beautiful: A spectacular light sculpture spanning five floors in the Galeria Kaufhof department store, formerly Horten. Store and sculpture were built in 1972.