Explorer Brême

The Bremen Roland is a 5.5-metre stone statue of the knight Roland, erected in 1404 on the market square as a symbol of the city's trading rights and civic freedom. One of the oldest and largest Roland statues in Germany, it has stood beside the town hall ever since and was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004.

Bremen Town Hall stands on the market square, built between 1405 and 1410 in Gothic style and given a Weser Renaissance facade in the early 17th century. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2004 together with the neighbouring Roland statue, it still houses the city senate, and its state rooms can be seen on a guided tour.

This bronze statue beside Bremen Town Hall depicts the donkey, dog, cat and rooster of the Grimm fairy tale Town Musicians of Bremen, standing stacked on each other's backs. Made by sculptor Gerhard Marcks and unveiled in 1953, it is one of the city's most photographed landmarks, and visitors often rub the donkey's legs for luck.

Bremen Cathedral, dedicated to St. Peter, stands on the market square on a site used for worship since the 8th century, with the present Gothic church largely built from the 13th century onward. Its twin west towers were rebuilt in the 1890s, and the crypts, cloister and a tower climb can be visited separately from the nave.

Böttcherstraße is a roughly 100-metre pedestrian street in Bremen's old town, rebuilt between 1922 and 1931 at the initiative of coffee merchant Ludwig Roselius, with artist Bernhard Hoetger overseeing its design. Its brick buildings, a notable example of Brick Expressionism, have housed shops, workshops and two museums since 1931.

The Schnoor is Bremen's oldest quarter, a maze of narrow lanes lined with small 15th- to 18th-century fishermen's and craftsmen's houses that survived wartime bombing largely intact. Restored from the 1950s onward, its cottages now hold cafes, galleries and craft shops, and the district is protected as a historic monument.

The Kunsthalle Bremen is an art museum close to Bremen's old town, on the city's so-called Culture Mile. It opened in 1849, was enlarged in 1902 by architect Eduard Gildemeister, and has been expanded several times since, most recently in 2011. The building has been a protected heritage site since 1977.

Bürgerpark, together with the adjoining Stadtwald, covers more than 200 hectares, Bremen's second-largest green space. Established in 1866, it has been financed almost entirely through private donations ever since and is considered one of Germany's most complete surviving examples of 19th-century landscape gardening.

Universum Bremen is a science museum housed in a distinctive shell-shaped metallic building. Visitors are encouraged to interact with most of its roughly 250 exhibits, which cover topics from the human body to space and technology. The museum receives on average 450,000 visitors a year.