Panoramic view of the Marktplatz.

To explore the jewel that is the centre of Bremen, we recommend starting with Sögestrasse, literally “pig street”. In the Middle Ages this was actually a path which swineherds from the neighbouring countryside used to take when coming to sell their animals at the market place.
 
This pedestrian street is the longest in Bremen and is also the main shopping street, with famous shops such as the Knigge cake shop and Schlemmermeyer pork butcher's. It also contains the Katharinen Klosterhof shopping centre, with its jewellery shops and beautiful boutiques selling clothes and shoes.
 
Several 17th century houses of Flemish inspiration evoke the prosperous past of Bremen, which was the city of both cotton and coffee and which, from 1783, maintained trade relations with the United States of America.
 

 
Sögestrasse leads to the historic heart of Bremen, the vast Marktplatz, which in the 16th century was the seat of the powerful Hansa guild of traders and today houses the parliament of the Land of Bremen.

In winter, the inhabitants like to come here at any time of day to drink mulled wine, or snack on sausages or potato pancakes sprinkled with sugar.
 
After the famous Christmas market in December, you will discover one of the country's biggest flower markets here.

 

 
Despite the bombings that destroyed it in 1945, the Markplatz remains an architectural jewel, just like its town hall, the Rathaus, which celebrated its 600th anniversary in 2005 and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
 
In order to rebuild the Markplatz exactly as it was, in the early 1950s the inhabitants of Bremen took façades from 17th and 18th century houses in other districts and transplanted them to replace the façades which had been destroyed.
 
Opposite the arcades, gables and gothic statues of the Rathaus, you can admire the gigantic statue of Roland, the emblem of the city. Despite its astonishingly modern appearance, it was erected at the same time as the town hall, in 1404.
 

Connecting Marktplatz to the Weser river, the other wonder of Bremen is without doubt Böttcherstrasse, coopers' street, which combines the medieval style with the expressionist style of the 1920s.
 
Between 1923 and 1933 this narrow medieval street was restored by Ludwig Roselius, the inventor of HAG decaffeinated coffee. Hitler attempted to have these buildings destroyed, because to his mind they fell into the category of “degenerate” art, but he came up against resistance from the city council.
 
Today, the tall brick houses contain art galleries, Roselius' collections (medieval Madonnas, works by Cranach and Picasso), a theatre, bookshops, and taverns.
 
At the top of a tower, a carillon made up of 30 Meissen porcelain bells chimes at 12pm, 3pm and 6pm. Another curiosity, the Atlantis House (built in 1931) has an impressive spiral staircase, which leads to a room depicting the sky.

 

Founded near the Weser in 1200 by fishermen and craftsmen, the Schnoor is the most picturesque of vestiges.
 
It was nearly destroyed in the 1950s on account of its insalubrity, before being restored in 1965 and subsequently listed as an historic site. Here you will discover some gems such as the city's smallest house, a hotel with just one room, miniature gardens, narrow alleys and a multitude of shops (including one specialising in barrel organs).
 
Like Montmartre or the Marais in Paris, the Schnoor has become a very popular artistic district.
 

Set in the heart of the Bürgerpark near the Park Hotel, this district, whose name means “poorly inhabited”, is listed as an historic site. It consists of superb 19th century bourgeois houses typical of Bremen architecture: gardens front and back, basement kitchens, and gabled façades of Flemish inspiration.
 
In good weather, you can ride around it by bicycle and, from the month of May, take the opportunity to visit the marvellous rhododendron park, which contains the biggest collection in Europe with over 450 species. The Universum Science Center nearby is also a must-see.
 

How does a tornado form? Or an earthquake? Why do soap bubbles have a multicoloured sheen? Why is each human being unique? You will find out when you enter this superb whale-shaped building, the Universum Science Center.
 
This ultramodern site, created in 2000, is well known throughout Germany and attracts 1,500 visitors each day (many of them schoolchildren from the four corners of the country). Nearly 250 interactive terminals, simulation apparatus, video installations and fun presentations invite visitors to explore the earth, ocean floors, man and the cosmos. On board a submarine or spaceship, you will suddenly have the feeling of being confronted with the mysteries of nature: a unique way of making science attractive and accessible!
 
Nearby, you will see a strange tower that looks like a rocket: this is the Fallturm, a 146 m/479 ft-tall tower erected in 1985, which is used for experimentation under conditions of weightlessness. Bremen is in effect a renowned aeronautics and astronautics centre. The EADS factory here makes space stations and parts for the Ariane rocket, as well as aircraft wings for Airbus.
 

With its 1,000 km (620 miles) of cycle paths and numerous green spaces, Bremen is a pleasant place to be, despite the winter harshness! We recommend that you stay in the Bürgerpark, created in 1865, which is the largest park in the city (140 hectares/346 acres). Opposite the very romantic Lake Hollersee, the impressive Park Hotel built in the 1950s is reputedly one of the 100 most beautiful hotels in the world. It is easy to get lost in the maze of stairways and corridors leading to its 177 rooms and 18 suites looking onto the lake... In winter there is nothing more pleasant than watching the snow falling through the tall windows in the lounge, which is topped by an immense dome and whose fireplace consumes whole tree trunks! In addition to the fitness centre and spa, the Park Hotel also boasts a gourmet restaurant which does not hide its ambitions (see our article Bremen, food capital of northern Germany). Rooms start at €138** per night, and reservations can be made online.
 
 

Counter at the confectionery Knigge.

Half of the coffee consumed in Germany has transited via Bremen since the 17th century. Before Hamburg, Bonn and Berlin, it was in Bremen that the country's first establishment serving cups of coffee was founded. It was also there that the famous HAG decaffeinated coffee was invented in 1906. Today, “Café” generally designates a cake shop where you can sit and eat in, such as the famous Knigge cake shop.
 
The more authentic and traditional Stecker cake shop dates back to 1742 and boasts an impressive collection of 19th century nutcrackers. The Stecker family is a real dynasty of pastry cooks. People come here to sample the delicious “Dresden Stolle”, a sort of fruit cake made with butter, almonds, raisins, sugar, and orange. Its local counterpart is none other than the “Bremen Klaben”, which contains more raisins. The other speciality of Bremen is the “tree cake”, a cake in the shape of a trunk with countless inner layers that look like the growth rings of a tree. Be sure to try the fresh apple strudels with pastry as fine as in Vienna!

 

In Bremen, the other institution after coffee is chocolate; the Hachez company, founded in 1890, is the second largest chocolate manufacturer in Germany after Lindt.
 
Hachez imports its noble beans from Ecuador, Venezuela and Mexico, and prepares the cocoa using traditional methods: it takes 100 hours of work from grain to bar! The cocoa is notably ground and mixed for 72 hours to obtain a very fine powder with little bitterness. Hachez' 88%-cocoa chocolate is smooth and fine. Delicious milk chocolate and drinking chocolate to drink in or take away.

A choice of wines, sausages and caviar beneath the flagstones of the town hall

Although Bremen is renowned for its very pure beer (the famous Beck's), wine connoisseurs will also be interested in exploring the immense cellar located beneath the medieval vaults of the Rathaus, opposite the market place. This cellar contains 600,000 German wines (the oldest of them dating back to 1653), kept in a candlelit room. A shop outside, next to the Rathaus, sells a selection of vintage wines dating back to 1727. Here you will find the sublime ice wines (Eiswein) from the Sarre and Moselle, renowned for their aromas of dried fruit, rose and spices.
 

 

Also located in the town hall basement, the Ratskeller is a large picturesque brasserie with its old ornate casks, waitresses dressed medieval style, and little wooden booths where you can have a romantic dinner behind curtains. (Menu from €18*)
 
At the other end of the dining room, the gourmet restaurant L'Orchidée marks a change of standard! The atmosphere here is rather chic and the prices are high, but this is the city's leading restaurant. The French-inspired cuisine combines international flavours, for example sea bass with Iberian ham, carrot soup with ginger or marinated tuna with Charentais melon. (Sampler menu at €89).
 

Set in a 16th century house in the heart of the oldest and most charming district in Bremen, the Schnoor, Schröters is a fashionable restaurant which is known above all for its trendy Italian-inspired cuisine.
 
Preferring to try local recipes, we ordered a venison stew with mushrooms, red cabbage and potatoes, dressed with a ginger and elder sauce. The calf's head on parsley mousse with mushrooms was also finely crafted. You can also let yourself be tempted by 100% traditional Bremen dishes, such as green cabbage and sausage stuffed with oats, poussin stew (Kükenragout), Vegesack herring and cabbage with black pudding. (Menu at €30)

Above the Weser and not far from the beautiful windmill overlooking the river, Grashoff is one of Bremen's gourmet institutions. This delicatessen, created in 1872, is renowned throughout Germany for the quality of its products: its jams, homemade chocolates, ready-cooked meals, balsamic vinegars, delicious rye bread (which keeps for a week!), baguettes, cooked pork meats, French cheeses, and old cognacs.
 
But Grashoff is also a bistro where people like to come and eat during the day, until 6.30pm. In addition to its beautiful red leather seats and old photos, connoisseurs will discover an impressive wine list dedicated to the great wines of Bordeaux, with the oldest vintages dating back to 1961 (a legendary year if ever there was one). At the bar we sampled a pleasant Kiel salmon trout caviar, as well as a Canadian lobster with saffron. (Menu at €35)

 

The Park Hotel restaurant is an address that we recommend as much for its magnificent setting (large windows giving onto an English-style park) as for its cuisine, which is both classic and creative. Frenchman Laurent Vialle, 45, arrived here barely six months ago, after starting out at the Plaza Athénée in Paris and then travelling through Europe and Morocco for ten years. From this voyage of discovery, he has been able to make good use of the various cooking methods of Scotland, Portugal, Poland and Germany. Although his cuisine is of French inspiration, with for example sole meunière, chateaubriand and canard à la presse (a duck speciality of the Tour d'Argent restaurant in Paris), he nevertheless endeavours to use the most outstanding local produce such as venison, pikeperch, smoked fish, liver sausage and cabbage. His cappuccino-style onion soup with cream of potato is delicious. The sommelier will introduce you to some fine German Rieslings, such as those of Fritz Haag and Reinhardt Löwestein. (Sampler menu at €60, lunch €40).