Bremen

• Many of Bremen’s attractions are concentrated in the Altstadt, an oval region bounded on the southwest by the Weser River and on the northeast by the Wallgraben, the old moats of the medieval city walls. The southeast half of the Altstadt is the oldest, beginning with the Marktplatz and finishing in the Schnoor sector.
• The ornate façade of Bremen’s Town Hall dominates the Marktplatz (Market square). The structure was created in Gothic architecture between 1405 and 1410, but the façade was added two centuries later (1609–12) in Renaissance style. The Bremen Senate President is seated at the Town Hall. Today, it houses the Ratskeller in Bremen, a restaurant with original design and massive wine barrels, and the wine list offers more than 600—exclusively German—wines. It also houses the world’s twelve oldest wines, which are kept in their original barrels in the Apostel chamber. The structure, together with the Bremen Roland, was included to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in July 2004.
• The statue Bremen Roland (1404) of the city’s defender, Roland, with his view against the Cathedral and holding Durendart, the “sword of justice,” and a shield ornamented with an imperial eagle, stands to the west of the Town Hall. The other is Gerhard Marcks’ bronze sculpture (1953) Die Stadtmusikanten (Town Musicians), which depicts the donkey, dog, cat, and rooster from theGrimm Brothers’ fairy tale.
• The Schütting, a 16th-century Flemish-inspired guild hall, Rathscafé, Raths-Apotheke, Haus der Stadtsparkasse, and the Stadtwaage, the former weigh house (built in 1588), with an ornate Renaissance façade, and the nearby Essighaus, once a fine Renaissance town house, are all interesting buildings near the Marktplatz. The façades and homes around the market square were the first structures in Bremen to be renovated after WWII by Bremen residents.
• St Peter’s Cathedral (13th century), east of the Marktplatz, has statues of Moses and David, Peter and Paul, and Charlemagne.
• A few remnants of St Catherine’s Monastery from the 13th century may be discovered on Katherinenklosterhof, northwest of the cathedral.
• The Liebfrauenkirche (Our Lady’s Church) is the town’s oldest church (11th century). Its crypt has some stunning 14th-century paintings.
• The 110 m (120 yd) Böttcherstraße, located off the south side of the Markplatz, was transformed in 1923–1931 by coffee magnate Ludwig Roselius, who commissioned local artists to transform the narrow street (in medieval times, the street of the barrel makers) into an inspired mixture of Gothic and Art Nouveau. The Nazis labeled it “entartete Kunst” (degenerate art). The street is now one of Bremen’s most prominent tourist attractions, with the Glockenspiel House at No. 4 housing a carillon of Meissen porcelain bells.
• The Martinikirche (St Martin’s Church) is at the end of Böttcherstraße, on the Weser river. It is a Gothic brick church erected in 1229 and rebuilt in 1960 after being destroyed during World War II.
• The Schnoor is a tiny, well-preserved district of crooked passageways, fishermen’s and shipper’s cottages from the 17th and 18th centuries, currently populated by cafés, artisan stores, and art galleries, tucked away between the Cathedral and the river. The Convent of Saint Birgitta (Birgittenkloster), established in 2002, is a tiny community of seven sisters that offers guest lodging.
• Schlachte, Bremen’s historic harbor (the new port is a few kilometers downstream), is now a riverfront promenade with taverns and restaurants on one side and the Weser on the other.
• To the east of the old town, the Viertel neighborhood blends rows of 19th-century Bremen Houses (Bremer Häuser) with museums and theaters along the city’s cultural mile.
• The Nasir Moschee is Bremen’s first purpose-built mosque for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

Among the most recent tourism attractions are:

• The Universum Scientific Center is a contemporary science museum.
• The Rhododendron-Park Bremen is a large collection of rhododendrons and azaleas with a botanical garden.
• Botanika, a nature museum inside the Rhododendron-Park Bremen, aspires to be similar to the Universum, but for biology.
• Bremen’s inhabitants maintain the Kunsthalle Bremen, an art museum containing works from the 19th and 20th centuries.
• The Focke Museum is Bremen’s People’s Museum of Art and Cultural History.
• The Übersee Museum Bremen (Overseas (World) Museum) is a Natural History and Ethnographic museum located near Bremen Central Station.
• The Kunstsammlungen Böttcherstraße is an art museum in Bernhard Hoetger’s expressionist building containing paintings by Paula Modersohn-Becker from the twentieth century.
• The Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst is a modern art museum set in the midst of the Weser River.

Due to its closeness to the North Sea coast and temperate marine air masses that flow in with the typically westerly winds from the Atlantic Ocean, Bremen has a mild oceanic climate (Köppen climatic classification Cfb). However, continental air masses may prevail at any time of year, resulting in heat waves in the summer and protracted spells of frost in the winter. In general, extremes are uncommon in Bremen, with temperatures as low as 15 °C (5.0 °F) and as high as 35 °C (95.0 °F) occurring only every few of years. The record high temperature was 37.6 degrees Celsius (99.7 degrees Fahrenheit) on August 9, 1992, while the record low temperature was 23.6 degrees Celsius (10.5 degrees Fahrenheit) on February 13, 1940. Despite being some distance from the main North Sea, Bremen has a somewhat broader temperature range than Bremerhaven, which is situated near the mouth of the Weser.

Average temperatures have steadily increased in recent decades, resulting in a 0.6 °C (1 °F) increase in the mean annual temperature between the 1961–90 and 1981–2010 reference periods. As in much of Germany, 2014 was the hottest year on record, with an average temperature of 11.1 °C (52.0 °F), making Bremen the second-warmest German state after Berlin in 2014. While Bremen is situated in the rather foggy northern portion of Germany, average sunlight hours have increased significantly over the previous decades, particularly in the months of April, May, and July, leading the annual mean to climb by 62 hours between the two reference periods stated above. This trend has persisted over the previous ten years, which have seen an average of 1614 hours of sunlight, 130 hours greater than the worldwide reference period of 1961–90. Nonetheless, the winters remain exceedingly bleak by worldwide standards, with December averaging just one hour of sunlight (out of the seven astronomically possible) each day, a trait that Bremen shares with the majority of Germany and its neighboring nations.

Precipitation is reasonably evenly distributed throughout the year, with a modest rise in summer owing mostly to convective precipitation, i.e. showers and thunderstorms. Snowfall and the duration of snow cover are vary; although some years have little snow accumulation, there has lately been a string of extraordinarily snowy winters, with the record year 2010 reporting 84 days with a snow cover. Nonetheless, snow accumulations of more over 20 centimetres (8 in) are rare, with the record being 68 centimetres (26.8 in) on February 18, 1979.

Bremen’s hottest months are June, July, and August, with average high temperatures ranging from 20.2 to 22.6 °C (68.4 to 72.7 °F). The coldest months are December, January, and February, with average low temperatures ranging from 1.1 to 0.3 degrees Celsius (30.0 to 32.5 degrees Fahrenheit). Autumn remains pleasant far into October, as is typical of its seaside position, but spring comes later than in the country’s southern regions.

Bremen is located on both banks of the Weser River, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) upstream of its estuary on the North Sea and its transition to the Outer Weser at Bremerhaven. The “Middle Weser” becomes the “Lower Weser” opposite Bremen’s Altstadt, and the river has been made navigable to ocean-going boats from the vicinity of Bremen’s port. The Weser Marshes are located on the left bank of the Lower Weser, through which the Ochtum runs, while the Elbe-Weser Triangle is located on the right side. The downstream tributaries of the Weser are the Lesum and its tributaries, the Wümme and Hamme, as well as the Schönbecker Aue and Blumenthaler Aue.

The municipal territory of the city is about 38 kilometers (24 miles) long and 16 kilometers (9.9 miles) broad. Bremen is the thirteenth biggest city in Germany in terms of area, and the second largest city in northwest Germany after Hamburg, and the tenth largest in Germany overall.

Bremen is located around 50 kilometers (31 miles) east of Oldenburg, 110 kilometers (68 miles) southwest of Hamburg, 120 kilometers (75 miles) northwest of Hanover, 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Minden, and 105 kilometers (65 miles) northeast of Osnabrück. A portion of the port land of Bremerhaven is an exclave of the City of Bremen.

Bremen had a GDP per capita of $53,379 in 2013, according to statistics from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which was greater than the average for Germany as a whole. In contrast, the World Bank stated Germany had a GDP per capita of $46,268 in 2013, while the EU as a whole had a GDP per capita of $35,408 in the same year.

Bremen, after Hamburg, is the region’s second development center. It is part of Airbus SAS’s manufacturing network, and it is where the wing units for all widebody Airbus aircraft are equipped, as well as tiny sheet metal components are manufactured. Another focus is structural assembly, which includes metal landing flaps. The construction of the landing flaps (high lift systems) is done here as part of the Airbus A380 manufacturing process. Before the A400M military transport aircraft is delivered to Spain, the fuselage portion (except the cockpit) is pre-assembled.

Bremen, Germany’s second biggest Airbus facility, employs about 3,100 people. Bremen is responsible for the design and construction of high-lift systems for Airbus aircraft wings as part of the Centre of Excellence – Wing/Pylon. The project office, technology engineering, flight physics, system engineering, structure development, verification testing, structural assembly, wing outfitting, and ultimate delivery to the final assembly line are all formed here. In addition, as part of the Centre of Excellence – Fuselage and Cabin, Bremen produces sheet metal elements such as clips and thrust crests for all Airbus aircraft.

Bremen is home to an EADS Astrium factory as well as the headquarters of OHB-System, the European Union’s first and third space firms.

Mercedes-Benz also has a plant in Bremen that produces the C, CLK, SL, SLK, and GLK models.

Beck’s and St Pauli Girl beers are made in Bremen by Beck & Co. When Bremen’s port was the “key to Europe,” the city boasted a significant number of wine importers, but that number has since shrunk to a mere few. Aside from that, there is another connection between Bremen and wine: exceptional wines were made here about 800 years ago. The world’s biggest wine cellar is situated in Bremen (below the city’s main plaza), and it was previously estimated to house over a million bottles, but it was looted by occupying troops during WWII.

Bremen is home to many food-producing or trading companies with German or European headquarters, including Anheuser-Busch InBev (Beck’s Brewery), Kellogg’s, Kraft Foods (Kraft, Jacobs Coffee, Milka Chocolate, Milram, Miràcoli), Frosta (frosted food), Nordsee (chain of sea fast food), Melitta Kaffee, Eduscho Kaffee, Azul Kaffee, Vitakraft (pet food for birds and fishes).