Back in 2015, my wife and I did a very short trip away with the only real consideration on the destination being that it had to be cheap and leaving from our city. We only have a regional airport, so there aren't many direct flights to anywhere of consequence, but with no care other than "to get away" together for a few nights, we ended up in Bremen, Germany.
At the time, I had never been to Germany before other than a drive to a shop whilst visiting a friend in Basel, Switzerland a few years earlier. If you have been to Switzerland, you'll understand why if at all possible, the Swiss will do their shopping in Germany or France - Basel is a short drive from both countries.
In stereotypical style, we did zero research before going there, as we prefer to explore what is on offer once we have our feet on the ground. We tend to miss a lot of sights by doing this, but we also tend to have a fair bit of fun exploring what we can and end up speaking to more locals. Though at least while we were there, Bremen was a ghost town.
We were there in mid-January and happened to time our trip during some kind of public holiday, which meant nothing was really open, streets were empty and we had trouble finding places to eat. The sushitrain was pretty good there though.
Bremen is known for two things - Well, I have very little idea what Bremen is known for, but the Am Wall Windmill is one of the cities icons, as is a statue of some notoriety, "The town musicians of Bremen", which is a story by the Brother's Grimm about farmyard animals that was published in 1819. The Am wall mill has been built a few times after it has burned down one less than that, and currently has a restaurant in it. One of the benefits of being in a place that has no one in it is, *it is possible to get a booking in a popular restaurant.
The other benefit of being in a deserted city is that there aren't many people ti get in the way of photos. These images were shot on a Canon D40, with the panorama taken on my phone, which I think was a Samsung S6 at the time. Taking photos isn't just my visual memory of things, to look back on, it is also the way I take in the feel of the place at the time, so it is important for me to take some photos along the way to get the sense of a place.
Funnily, Bremen has come up twice in the last two days, which is why I am posting about it now. The first was that my wife and I were watching a documentary and a scene popped up from a part of a building ceiling and I recognized it as Bremen immediately, because I have a shot from that specific point. I can't remember names, but I can recall random bits of buildings I have photographed - very useful. The second reminder I will get to at the end of the post.
Bremen is quite a pretty little town, but we didn't explore much of it, other than walking around the old town streets taking photos and looking for good stuff to eat. In Germany, there is the "Kaffee and Kuchen" tradition, with Bremen being one of the founding locations when coffee was first introduced back in the 1600s. It was expensive and was for the wealthy and noble people of the time - now, it is a thing that Germans do daily it seems. Germany has a strong coffee culture - but I prefer the darker roast across the boarder in France myself.
And as said, we did manage to get a booking in the Am Wall restaurant and my wife is looking pretty hot in this image. The food in the restaurant was good, but was also of a more traditional type, which meant at least for me, it was a little bland with very little style to it. Perhaps "functional" is a good way to describe it. What was nice was that while most of the time we had been in the city it had been empty, the restaurant was filled with locals having a good time and enjoying a drink or two.
We also ended up in a bar called The Lemon Lounge, which was a couple hundred meters down the Am Wall (old fortifications that run the river) and was a maze of a place that seemed to run through a couple of buildings and random floors. It was very full, but we managed to get a table and have a few drinks ourselves, while people watching the locals on their weekend routines.
Now, this last photo is the second reason as to why I am posting about Bremen tonight. My bro, 
Taraz
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