Hanseatic Steampunk: Cora’s Adventures at the 2025 Aethercircus Festival in Buxtehude

The first May weekend was another long holiday weekend, because May 1 is a public holiday in Germany, the schools were closed on Friday May 2 and many had taken the day off work, so much of Germany had a four day weekend. Which meant busy roads and trains and also lots of events going on all over the country.

One of these events was the Aethercicus Steampunk Festival in Buxtehude. Buxtehude is a town of 40000 people southwest of Hamburg on the banks of the river Este at the edge of the Altes Land (old country), a part of the Elbe marshlands which is Germany’s most important fruit growing region. Buxtehude was officially founded in 1285 AD, though the area has been inhabited for much longer. It’s a Hanseatic city and nowadays part of the Hamburg Metropolitan region. Buxtehude is also about a hundred kilometers north of where I live and – most importantly – on the south side of the river Elbe, which means you don’t have to deal with the traffic nightmare that is Hamburg. In  short, it’s ideal for a daytrip.

Breakfast at Sam’s

Because a trip to Buxtehude wasn’t that long, I got up at just before eight AM and dressed up somewhat steampunky – long brown skirt, vaguely early 20th century looking blouse with a brown and white floral pattern, Steampunk jewellery and my trusty brown Dockers. I set off at eight thirty, driving onto my old friend Autobahn A1 in northwards direction towards Hamburg.

However, I left the A1 again after only twenty kilometers at Oyten, the first exit after Bremen. The reason is that Oyten has an Autohof and a pretty good one at that. It doesn’t have the usual fast food chains, but an American style retro diner called Daisy’s Diner – one of the few survivors of the 1990s fashion for American style retro diners – and Sam’s Urban Bakery, a large bakery café. Daisy’s wasn’t open yet, so Sam’s it was.

Sam’s Urban Bakery is something of a double misnomer, since it’s neither urban nor does it involve anyone named Sam. The bakery was founded in 1831 in the decidedly non-urban village of Fischerhude. For much of its history, it was simply known as Bakery Sammann, named after the family who operated it. However, the chain eventually reinvented itself as Sam’s Urban Bakery, though most of the branches are still in fairly rural areas.  Not that it matters much, because Sam’s is a really good bakery.

The Sam’s branch at Autohof Oyten is actually next to their main production facility, because the old bakery in Fischerhude could no longer supply the growing chain. Most German bakery chains actually have a production facility in an industrial business park somewhere, from where the various branches are supplied. There still are independent bakeries baking on site, but those are increasingly rare.

When I drove onto Sam’s parking lot, the bakery was already hopping with people picking up their morning rolls or having breakfast on site. I ordered a large veggie sandwich with guacamole, tomatoes, rocket and feta cheese, topped with two fried eggs, as well as latte macchiato and orange juice and settled down at a table with a good view of some horses peacefully grazing on a meadow next to the Autobahn.

Autobahn A1 Northwards

After my breakfast stop at Oyten, I drove back onto Autobahn A1, northwards bound. I know the Bremen – Hamburg leg of the A1 pretty well, i.e. I know the names of the exits and the order they go in.

The Bremen – Hamburg leg of the A1 is really boring, since it passes fields, hills (somewhat surprising this far north) and windmills and very little of interest until you reach Hamburg. This isn’t surprising, because this part of the North German lowlands is sparsely populated, dotted with small towns and villages.

One thing that’s unusual about the Bremen – Hamburg leg of the A1 is that it has no less than three service station as well as several Autohöfe on a stretch of roughly one hundred kilometers. The reason is probably that the A1 is an extremely busy Autobahn, since it’s one of the main North South routes for all of Europe. That means a lot of traffic, a lot of trucks and a lot of holidaymakers, all of whom need places to refuel, eat, drink and pee, hence the many service stations and Autohöfe on this fairly short stretch of Autobahn. And indeed, the Autobahn was quite busy, even though I didn’t expect a Saturday in the middle of a long holiday weekend to be particularly busy.

I’m familiar with service stations Grundbergsee (which I’ve been avoiding since 1988 due to its association with the so-called Gladbeck hostage crisis) and Hollenstedt/Aarbachkate (for some reason, the service stations on either side of the A1 have different names here, though everybody refers to it as Hollenstedt), though I keep forgetting the existence of service station Ostetal inbetween the two. I have no idea why I keep forgetting service station Ostetal exists, especially since it was the site of a terrible accident in 2014, when a truck crashed into the service station without braking, injuring seventeen people and killing one. Oddly enough, I have zero memory of that incident either.

Vehicles crashing into clusters of pedestrians or buildings full of people isn’t that unusual. Nowadays, deliberate vehicle-ramming attacks are mostly associated with islamic terrorism, though they are not a new phenomenon. The earliest case I was aware of is the Olga Hepnarova case in Czechslovakia in 1973, but Wikipedia lists several earlier cases, including one from 1935.  However, not every case of a vehicle ploushing into groups of people is treated as an attack. Quite often, if the driver is white and not obviously mentally disturbed, the incident is treated as a tragic accident, a brake failure or a driver confusing the accelerator and the brake. Now accidents happen, but it’s interesting that brakes tend to fail or drivers confuse the accelerator and brake where there are people to mow down. There are some cases I remember happening in my region – a taxi driver who happened to plough into some foodstalls, mowing down pedestrians (the driver claimed the brakes failed and the taxi accelerated uncontrollably) or an elderly driver crashing into a busy ice cream parlour (supposedly an epileptic attack) – that seemed fishy to me and yet never got national, let alone international attention, probably because the drivers didn’t happen to be Muslim.

Regarding the Ostetal case, I couldn’t find anything about the results of the investigation beyond “the cause is unknown”. It might really have been an accident – the truck driver noticed problems, drove onto the service station to examine the truck and found he couldn’t brake. But the pattern that vehicles ploughing into people or buildings are considered terrorism, when the driver is Muslim, and tragic accidents, when the driver is white and not Muslim, is really notable and something that irked me for years.

I left Autobahn A1 at the exit Hollenstedt and my GPS Else directed me through small towns, green fields, woodlands and once again, hills. These hills are called the Harburger Berge (Harburg mountains) and reach a surprising 155 meters above sea level. By comparison, the highest elevation in the Bremen region is the so-called Hoher Berg (high mountain) which is 58.2 meters above sea level.

Buxtehude Central Station and an Antique Interlude

After some meandering along country roads, I finally reached Buxtehude.

Buxtehude has 40000 inhabitants and the Aethercircus festival, one of the largest Steampunk festivals in Europe, was expected to draw 50000 to 60000 people over the weekend. That’s a lot of people and so the organisers had asked visitors to use public transport, whenever possible (which it isn’t for me, because I’d have to change trains several times), and to park at the train station, if not, because the parking lots closer to the city center were expected to be filled to capacity – plus, some of them had been converted into space for the festival.

So I headed for Buxtehude’s train station and parked my car on the large parking lot. Buxtehude is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan region and connected to the Hamburg S-Bahn light rail network, because many of the inhabitants commute to Hamburg every day. This is actually a good way to visit Hamburg without dealing with the city’s nightmare traffic – drive to one of the commuter towns south of the Elbe, park my car, get a day ticket and hop onto the S-Bahn to head for the city center. Going directly by train isn’t that easy from my location, because I always have to change trains in Bremen and the schedules don’t line up well. The closest train station for me – Kirchweyhe – doesn’t have a direct connection to Hamburg.

Buxtehude’s train station is on the outskirts of town, so I hopped into a city bus to take me to the city center. This was also where I saw the first Steampunks, who had clearly also gotten the memo to park at the train station.

The bus took me to the Central Bus Station of Buxtehude, which is located on the edge of historic city center and surrounded by rather drab postwar buildings. The historic city center of Buxtehude is pedestrianised, so the busses can’t go any further.

Now I’m pretty sure that I have been in Buxtehude before, but that must have been a long time ago, since nothing about the town rang a bell along the lines of “Yes, I’ve definitely been here before.” And since I didn’t know my way around, I just followed the rest of the bus passengers, figuring that they were headed for the city center proper.

However, before I got to the city center, I came across a great antiques store in a side street. They had an amazing selection of vintage china and glassware, including many full sets. It made me a little sad, because it was obvious that people had just offloaded their parents’ or grandparents’ china, glass and silverware – things which were much treasured once upon a time. On the other hand, it’s better if the china and glassware ends up in an antiques store, where it can find new appreciative owners, than if it’s just thrown out. Also, pre-owned china is a lot cheaper than if you buy the same pattern new. Now I have my parents’ china, silverware and crystal glassware and I mostly like their choices, but I’m considering whether I should get a nice vintage set in a pattern I chose for myself. Because as a kid, I always admired the china patterns that were much more colourful and exciting than my parents’ lovely but subdued set. And yet I never bought fine china for myself, because it’s bloody expensive, when purchased new (because it’s produced in a high wage country like Germany and sometimes even still painted by hand). But a used set might be a nice alternative.

I did buy something at the antiques store, namely a vintage handpainted Delftware box with a lid. These round lidded boxes are usually called candy boxes, though I don’t think anybody ever actually kept candy in these. It is beautiful, though, and will join my Delftware collection.

Skeletor approves as well.

I absolutely need to take a photo of Skeletor posing on or in front of the giant Delftware tulip vase that stands next to highway A13 between Rotterdam and Delft. I drove past the vase while I was in Rotterdam for Erasmuscon last year, but I didn’t have a Skeletor with me.

Festival Impressions

Among the drab postwar buildings around the central bus station, I also spotted my first evidence of Steampunk, namely a scaled down replica of a 1927 steam-powered crane for transporting timber, emerging from the vehicle trailer where it had spent the night.

I continued to follow the flow of pedestrians and found myself in the main pedestrianised shopping street of Buxtehude. The street was lined with stalls selling both Steampunk clothing, jewellery and objects as well as regular food and drink stalls. I purchased a festival t-shirt at one of the stalls and picked up a program book.

The Predator and the Transformers were on display at the stall of a metal art studio from Hamburg which produces lots Steampunk interpretations of pop culture characters. It’s stunning work. They even make life-size figures, if you ever wanted a Transformer in your garden.

However, there was far more to see at the Aethercircus festival than a few market stalls. The city center was dotted with stages where Steampunk bands performed – mostly in the evening, but there also was a brass band playing on one stage I passed.

There were also acrobatic performances and various Steampunk vehicles parading through the streets.

Steampunk People and Costumes:

Of course, there were also plenty of Steampunks about, ranging from cosplayers in full Steampunk gear via historical costumers and goths (I spotted a Wednesday Addams) to people who borrowed grandpa’s old suit and regular folks who accessorised their outfits with a few Steampunk piece such as an elderly lady in regular street clothes with a Steampunk necklace. Naturally, the Aethercircus attracted cosplayers who wanted to show off their costumes, but it was also heartening to see how many regular non-fannish folks made an effort to fit in. So enjoy these photos of great costumes:

Budnikowsky and the Buxtehude Bull

In many ways, the Aethercircus Steampunk Festival is a variation of the city festivals you find in many German towns, where the city center is filled with food trucks, market stalls, fairground rides and stages for performances. Sometimes, these town festivals are just called Spring Festival or Summer Festival, sometimes there is a theme. Buxtehude chose Steampunk as their theme. The reason appears to be that the town is home to the member of a Steampunk band, who is also the festival organiser. He’s interviewed by the Hamburger Abendblatt here. Though it’s lovely to see a small town – well, not that small, since Buxtehude is home to 40000 people – just embrace the beautiful weirdness of Steampunk.

Since Saturday is also a prime shopping day, the town center was packed with people and not all of them were there for the festival. Some simply wanted to do some weekend shopping and sudddenly found themselves in the middle of the festival, surrounded by very strange looking people. I noticed a lot of folks looking up Steampunk on their phones and then reading out the German Wikipedia entry to their companions. I even found myself giving a brief background to a couple of elderly shoppers.

And since the shops were open, of course I availed myself of the opportunity to examine the goods on offer. My first stop – after the antiques store – was a drugstore of the Budniskowsky chain, Budni for short. Budnikowsky is a Hamburg based drugstore chain – founded in 1912 by a gentleman named Iwan Budnikowsky – and they only operate in the Hamburg Metropolitan region and – oddly enough – in Berlin. There used to be a Budnikowsky store in Bremen, but it closed ages ago. Which wouldn’t be much of an issue, except that Budnikowsky is the only drugstore chain which carries a particular organic coffee and milk chocolate, which I like a lot. So, when I spotted the Budni store, I went in to stock up on chocolate.

In addition to a Budnikowsky store, Buxtehude also has several bookstores – all indies, no chains. I came across four bookstores and of course I had to check out every single one of them. As for why a town of 40000 people boasts at least four bookstores, Buxtehude is also a literary city and home to Germany’s best known award for YA fiction, the Buxtehude Bull. The Buxtehude Bull has been going since 1971 and the city has clearly embraced the award and is actually adminstering it, after the death of the founder, a local bookseller. All through the city, there were plaques with the names of past winners set into the sidewalk.

Now I have been aware of the Buxtehude Bull for a long time. However, I never paid much attention to the award, because a) I’m no longer the target audience, and b) I assumed that the Buxtehude Bull mostly awarded the sort of depressing problem books that I’ve been actively avoided since I was the target audience. And yes, a lot of depressing problem books have won the award over the years (the full list of winners is here), including Alan and Naomi by Myron Levoy (which I got as a birthday gift from that one relative who kept up with award winning YA books – my German teacher cousin) and The Last Children of Schewenborn by Gudrun Pausewang, who graphically nukes her hometown and describes people dying horribly in loving detail. I wrote more about The Last Children of Schewenborn and Gudrun Pausewang’s equally depressing The Cloud here. In fact, I’m surprised that The Cloud did not win the Buxtehude Bull, considering how ubiquitous and traumatising that book was for a whole generation. In the case of David Safier, who is mostly known for humorous works (he writes the Miss Merkel cozy mysteries among others), they managed to award one of two ultra-serious works he wrote, the Holocaust novel 28 Days, loosely based on Safier’s own family history.

However, looking at the plaques on the sidewalk celebrating the past winners of the Buxtehude Bull, I also spotted a lot of works that are anything but depressing problem books. I also spotted quite a lot of SFF books, such as The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, The Museum of Stolen Memories by Ralf Isau,  Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (this one made me stop dead on the sidewalk and exclaim, “Stephenie Meyer won the Buxtehude Bull?! Really?”), The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Delirium by Lauren Oliver, Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer, The Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard or The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. Even The Last Children of Schewenborn is SFF, though super-depressing. And the above mentioned David Safier has written several humorous speculative novels, though 28 Days is historical fiction.

Looking at the sidewalk plaques and the list of winners, I also noticed that there were a lot of books I was familiar with and had read at some point. Anyway, I will follow the Buxtehude Bull more closely now, because they do tend to award interesting books and many of the winners have aged quite well, though a few haven’t.

Since I visited four different bookstores in Buxtehude, I also bought some books. One of the bookstores had a special display of Steampunk novels, which I think was a great idea, though the Steampunk fiction isn’t as popular as it was approx. ten years ago. You can see my somewhat dystopian and post-apocalyptic heavy haul below, lorded over by Batros the book thief from the Filmation He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon. And yes, that really was Batros’ deal. He stole all the books from the Royal Library of Eternos and tried to make himself King of Eternia in the episode “The Great Books Mystery” (also notable, because this episode contains the infamous scene where Teela climbs up a rope and Adam and Cringer both check out her butt. Besides, this is the only time we learn Prince Adam’s age, since he celebrates his nineteenth birthday in this episode). And when Skeletor tried to recruit him, Batros tried to take over Castle Grayskull and Skeletor’s gang as well. You certainly can’t fault his ambition. And yes, I love it that the He-Man cartoon dedicated a whole episode to a villain whose thing was stealing books. Cause who wouldn’t a bibliophile villain?

There’s some debate about Batros’ background BTW, since he only ever appeared in a single episode of the cartoon and forty years later a single issue of a comic. He’s clearly some kind of bat creature, but it has never been confirmed whether he is a Spelean (a species of bat people that lives in the caverns under the surface of Eternia). There’s also some debate whether Batros is a member of the Evil Horde, since the symbol on his chest looks very much like the Horde symbol.  James Eatock says no – Batros and the Horde characters were simply designed by the same Filmation character designer –  though this unofficial fan bio says yes. I guess Batros can be whatever you want him to be.

City Views and History

Of course, Buxtehude also has things to offer aside from Steampunk and bookstores. The city was officially founded in 1285 AD, though people have been living here at least since the iron age. So the town accumulated some interesting architecture over the centuries.

As you can see, the St. Petri Church is currently undergoing renovations. Nonetheless, the church was open and of course I took the opportunity to go inside.

Now I have a self-imposed rule that I don’t take photos inside churches or other places of worship, because I find it disrespectful, especially if you disturb. However, the St. Petri Church was completely empty, so whom would I disturb by taking a picture? After all, it’s not as if God would strike me dead on the spot. So I took the photo below.

However, the most famous artwork of the St. Petri Church, the so-called Buxtehude Altar, dating from 1400 AD, is not kept in the church at all, but at the art museum in nearby Hamburg. There was a reproduction on display in the church, though, which also pointed out part of what makes the altar so famous, namely that it portrays the Virgin Mary knitting. This is one of the earliest surviving depictions of knitting and looks remarkably modern. More about the significance of the knitting Virgin Mary may be found here.

On the square in front of the church, there was a fountain dedicated to Magister Gerhard Halepaghe, who was the vicar of the St. Petri Church in the fifteenth century and did many charitable works around the city. He left his assets to a charitable foundation which exists to this day.

Buxtehude’s medieval townhall sadly burned down in 1911, so the current townhall, designed by architect Alfred Sasse and built in 1913, is not very old, though it is an impressive building nonetheless.

There also were a number of historic timbered houses, though not as many as you’d expect with a city that experiences its economic heyday in the Middle Ages. Most likely, quite a few medieval buildings fell victim to fires, war and modernisation efforts over the centuries.

Like most medieval cities, Buxtehude used to have a fortified city wall, but only one of formerly five towers survived, the so-called Marschtorzwinger, survived. Nowadays, it houses a museum.

Buxtehude is also billed as a Hanseatic City, because it was a member of the Hanseatic League in medieval and early modern times. Nonetheless, when I saw “Hanseatic City Buxtehude” on the town sign, I thought, “Since when is Buxtehude a Hanseatic City?”

In school, I was taught that of the many Hanseatic cities, only three remain, Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck, which are still officially called Free Hanseatic City (or just Hanseatic City in the case of Lübeck, which lost its independence in 1937 and even sued – unsuccessfully – to get back its independence and the Free Hanseatic City title in 1956). Bremen and Hamburg are also still independent federal states to this day and very proud of their independence, which becomes clear whenever some politician ponders that it would be cheaper to just eliminate these small city states. And considered Lübeck sued to get back the title and its independence shows how important the status is, especially since Lübeck doesn’t even get to be the capital of the state of Schleswig-Holstein. Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck also have the “Hanseatic City” as part of their licence plates. Bremen is HB for “Hanseatic City of Bremen”, Hamburg is HH for “Hanseatic City of Hamburg” and Lübeck is HL for Hanseatic City of Lübeck”.

Fast forward to 1990 and the unification and suddenly, a bunch of East German cities (Rostock, Wismar, Stralsund, Greifswald and Anklam) started to calls themselves Hanseatic City as well, complete with the respective H licence plates, though without the “Free” part (since they are not independent), since they had been members of the Hanseatic League in medieval times. This prompted several other cities in both West and East Germany to proudly call themselves Hanseatic City again as well, though without the H licence plate. Buxtehude proudly took up the Hanseatic City title again in 2014.

Lunch Break

By now, it was noon and I was getting a little hungry again. I came across a Vietnamese restaurant called To Gao directly by the river and decided to have launch there.

Suitably refreshed, I headed out into the city for more steamy adventures.

The Harbour and more Steampunk

At the edge of the city center by the old harbour, there was a cultural/events center on the premises of a former pottery factory that housed an indoor market as well as more exhibits.

Unusual for me, I didn’t find anything at the indoor market, but the various Steampunk exhibits were quite lovely, showing off the creativity and craft skills of Steampunk makers.

At this point, my phone ran out of juice, so there were a few attractions and exhibits I did not get the photograph.

I made my way back to the bus station and asked fellow passengers which bus I needed to take to get back to the Central Station (“Oh, you mean the train station”, a lady corrected me, since Buxtehude only has one). At the train station, I walked back to my car and plugged in my phone.

By now, I was rather exhausted from walking around all day and would have very much liked to have a coffee and some cake or – even better – some ice cream to refresh myself for the drive home. However, the cafés and ice cream shops in the city center of Buxtehude had all been overcrowded, so I decided to just make a pitstop somewhere alone the way.

There was only one problem: My phone was dead, which meant that I couldn’t access Google maps and find a suitable café or ice cream parlour along the way. And while the GPS of my car has a search function for restaurants (even divided along cuisines), hospitals, gas stations, banks, etc…, the database is hopelessly out of date, particularly with regard to restaurants. And yes, it is a tad shocking how much I’ve come to rely on my phone and Google maps to navigate unfamiliar places. Though I always keep a paper road atlas in my car (also hopelessly outdated) for emergencies, a road atlas won’t help to find a café or ice cream parlour.

So I decided to drive off and find a place to stop somewhere on the way, by which time my phone would hopefully have recharged enough that I could look up a place to have coffee and/or ice cream. Preferably ice cream.

At the edge of Buxtehude, I came across a gas station with good prices and stopped to refuel my car (I have a plug-in hybrid, but for longer trips, I use my Dad’s diesel, because it’s cheaper). By now, the phone had recharged sufficiently that I could turn it on again and look for an ice cream parlour. Alas, the closest ice cream parlours were all in the town center of Buxtehude, whence I’d just come. And the small towns on the way back to the Autobahn (Moisburg and Hollenstedt and a few small villages) didn’t have any ice cream parlours. So I checked further afield and found that the town of Sittensen, two Autobahn exits away, did have an ice cream parlour named Sonia’s Garden Ice Cream Café with very good reviews. So I programmed the address into Else, my GPS, and set off again.

Ice Cream Break in Sittensen

Sittensen is another of those small towns whose name I only know, because it’s an Autobahn exit.

That is, many years ago, I was hired to interpet for foreign visitors at one of the dullest companies I’ve ever visited. I’ve long since forgotten the name of the company – all I remember is that they produced waste water treatment systems for yachts and smaller ships (which shouldn’t be as infernally dull as it was) and that they were located on an industrial estate somewhere by the A1 between Bremen and Hamburg. Though I don’t remember which exit it was either. Might have been Sittensen, might have been Stuckenborstel, might have been Bockel, might have been Heidenau, might have been Hollenstedt.

So maybe I have been in Sittensen before, but if so, it was only on an industrial estate and not in the town proper. Else directed me to a very narrow road on the edge of town – so narrow that I would never have found it on my own – where there was nothing but farms and fields.

Turns out that Sonia’s Garden Ice Cream Café was a wooden pavilion on the premises of a farm, attached to a farm shop. Still, I wanted an ice cream and this was the only ice cream place in reasonable distance to the Autobahn between here and Oyten. And judging by how busy the place was, it had to be good. So I found a table on the terrace and ordered a wild berry sundae.

Refreshed, I set off towards home, though I made one more stop on my way back to the Autobahn – at a Rewe supermarket to buy some groceries for the weekend.

Take the Long Way Home 

However, I still had more than an hour to drive. Normally, I would have been home in maybe thirty or forty minutes. But the Autobahn bridge across the river Weser in Bremen is currently undergoing much needed renovation work, which tend to cause traffic jams and is a massive hassle for everybody in and around Bremen.

In northbound direction, the situation is tolerable, because my exit Brinkum is only about two and a half kilometers from the bridge and the construction zone. So even if there is a traffic jam, you can get through it without overly long delays.

In southbound direction, however, the traffic jam often extends all the way to the Bremen Cross junction and beyond. That means ten or twelve kilometers of traffic jam and a massive delay. Normally, the traffic is tolerable on the weekends and in the evenings and you can take the A1 anyway. But in recent weeks, it’s gotten so bad that the traffic jam on the A1 in southbound direction is pretty much a constant issue. Maybe you can drive straight through at 1 AM, but at any semi-reasonable hour, there’s always a traffic jam.

On my way to Buxtehude, the usual traffic jam in southbound direction had extended beyond the Bremen Cross junction almost to the exit Oyten. And on my way back, the car radio informed me that the traffic jam had not dissipated. So I had to find another way to cross the river Weser.

Of course, Bremen has several bridges across the river Weser (this site lists most of them) – Stephani Bridge (named after a church), Bürgermeister Smidt Bridge (named after a 19th century mayor who founded Bremerhaven and was a raging antisemite and should really not have anything named after him), Teerhof Bridge (pedestrian and bikes only), Wilhelm Kaisen Bridge (named after another mayor, who is inexplicably positively remembered in spite of being not very competent, but at least he wasn’t a raging antisemite) and Strawberry Bridge. The official name of Strawberry Bridge is Karl Carstens Bridge, named after a conservative politician who was West Germany’s president from 1979 to 1984. He was not very popular as a president, plus he’d been a member of the Nazi party (only accidentally, of course) and an officer of the Wehrmacht in WWII. In short, no one much liked this guy. However, he had been born in Bremen and when he died, the city felt the need to name something after him and picked Strawberry Bridge (named because it passes over allotment gardens along the river, where people grow strawberries). However, the locals still call it Strawberry Bridge and always will.

Nonetheless, Bremen clearly has a thing for naming bridges after problematic people. I once suggested renaming Bürgermeister Smidt Bridge Julius Bamberger Bridge after a Jewish businessman who operated a department store near the bridge. Karl Carstens Bridge should simply be restored to its colloquial name. As for Wilhelm Kaisen, he wasn’t overly problematic – I just dislike the unjustified veneration he gets. But renaming his bridge is not a high priority.

Whenever there’s a traffic jam on the A1, the Bremen bridges quickly get overcrowded. What more, Stephani Bridge is curently also prone to traffic jams because of construction work on Bundestraße B75 and Bürgermeister Smidt Bridge is also undergoing construction work. All of these bridges were built in the 1950s and 1960s, so they are all breaking down at the same time. Strawberry and Wilhelm Kaisen Bridge are theoretically free – however, Saturday is also match day and the Weser Stadium, home of Werder Bremen, lies directly by the river between Strawberry and Wilhelm Kaisen Bridge, so both bridges would get overcrowded by football fans, plus Kaisen Bridge might not be accessible at all, because the Osterdeich riverside road and all the roads around the stadium are closed on match days. And yes, I find this infuriating, because it makes a whole neighbourhood inaccessible for the sake of a football match, even though people have plenty of reasons to go there that have nothing whatsoever to do with football.

So the Bremen bridges were out. However, there are still a couple of bridges upstream. First, there is Uesen Bridge in Achim, which actually appears – standing in for a Rhine Bridge – in Richard Lester’s 1967 anti-war movie How I Won the War, starring John Lennon. Of course, it’s bleedingly obvious that the Uesen Bridge is nowhere near the Rhine, but international audiences didn’t notice. And the filming, which employed lots of locals as extras, is still fondly remembered.

Since Uesen Bridge is the closest bridge to Bremen, it also tends to get overcrowded, whenever there is a traffic jam on the A1 or A27. The next crossing downstream is the weir in Intschede, which is a very narrow one lane bridge. Then there is the Weser bridge in Groß Hutbergen near Verden on Aller and then the bridges in Hoya and Nienburg,

For my way home, I chose the crossing at the weir in Intschede, which is mostly only known to locals. So I left the A1 at the exit Posthausen and made another pit stop at the Smyths Toys store on the premises of the Dodenhof shopping center in Posthausen (for more about the weird phenomenon that is Dodenhof, see this post). From Dodenhof, I took the road that leads to the Langwedel exit of Autobahn A27, though I did not drive onto the Autobahn, because the A27 would only take me back to the Bremen Cross intersection and the same traffic jam I was trying to avoid. Instead, I crossed the A27 and then the river Weser at the weir in Intschede.

From Intschede, I meandered through the countryside past fields, farms and forests. I passed through the village of Blender with its historic windmill and then through the towns of Thedinghausen and Syke towards home.

All in all, I had a great time at the Aethercircus Steampunk festival in Buxtehude, though I could have lived without the long, meandering way home. The Aethercircus Festival is biannual, i.e. the next one is in 2027, and I will probably go again, especially since the bloody Autobahn bridge should be repaired by then.

Of course, I’m not the only one to talk about the Aethercircus Steampunk festival. For other reports and impressions about the Aethercircus festival, see this TV news report from Sat1 Regional (I’m pretty sure I saw this TV team filming). Here is a video from Reisenberg Travel, a Buxtehude based travel YouTube channel, another video from Madle Fotowelt, a Buxtehude based YouTube channel, a video by Hobbyfilmer Uwe and yet another YouTube video by Kais Streetcafé.

The Hamburger Abendblatt, a Hamburg based newspaper, reported extensively about the Aethercircus festival. There’s a festival report here, a photo gallery here and an interview with Aethercircus founder and organiser, musician Michael Dunkelfels Deutschmann, here.  The local paper Buxtehuder Tageblatt and the weekly Neues Buxtehuder Wochenblatt both also report about the Aethercircus festival.