Arrived in Germany from Denmark 3 days ago and spent the last 2 nights in Bremen, South West of Hamburg. Bremen is a nice old city with lots of medieval buildings and little narrow streets. And some nice Bier Kellers which seemed to be G's main interest! Our first evening we went out to a bar near the campsite and got talking to a mature gentleman - I was going to say old git but then thought Hampshireman might be reading this! - who wanted to buy us some beer so he could practice his English! Of course we were only too happy to be of assistance! He was sent to school in England to improve his English in 1952 when he was 16 which must have been awful so close after the war. We did talk a bit about the effect of the war on how people treat the German's abroad since so it could have got a bit heavy but it was actually a nice evening. At the same time we were chatting with the bar staff and the waitress was from Kazakhstan so of course G had to ask if she enjoyed the Borat movie! I thought she was very restrained personally!

We ate there too and Gordon ordered the Bremen Knipps, the local speciality which was apparently "beef and pork with oats". We thought it sounded a bit like haggis and in fact it was very like that, except it was served with fried potatos and a gherkin!

Bremen is the start of the "Fairy tale road" which meanders South for 600km to Hanau where the Brothers Grimm were born. On the way we should see Rapunzel's tower, Sleeping Beauty's castle, Red Riding Hood's wood and where Hansel and Gretel got lost The Bremen connection is the "Bremen Musicians" which is a Grimm brothers story that didn't make it out of Germany I think, but concerns a Donkey, a dog, a cat and a cockerel who were being mistreated by their owners so went off to become musicians in Bremen and on the way sorted out some robbers!

We are now in Hameln of Pied Piper fame and they have  made the most of the rat connection. Very pretty town despite all the rat symbols and we got bought beer here too, but as they didn't speak English and my German didn't stretch that far we didn't really work out why, but who cares?