Bremen has been a bishop's seat since 787 and a free trading republic since the Middle Ages, and its history is legible in stone: Romanesque crypts, Hanseatic warehouses, a shipwreck raised from the Weser, and the concrete scars of the 20th century.
Founded as a wooden church in 789 under Bishop Willehad; the surviving Romanesque east and west crypts date from the 11th century. The Bleikeller lead cellar holds eight naturally mummified bodies. Mon–Fri 10:00–17:00, Sun 14:00–17:00.
The Flemish-Renaissance house of the Bremen merchants, built 1537–1538 by Antwerp architect Johann den Buschener, facing the Rathaus across the Marktplatz. Its motto 'Buten un binnen — wagen un winnen' still crowns the gable; today the Chamber of Commerce.
The Bremen Cog of 1380, found in Weser mud in 1962 and conserved over 20 years in polyethylene glycol — the best-preserved medieval Hanseatic merchant ship anywhere. Reached in 35 minutes by RE from Bremen Hbf to Bremerhaven-Mitte.
Bremen's oldest surviving quarter, a warren of 15th–18th-century fishermen's and craftsmen's houses named after the 'Schnoor' (cord) of ropemakers' workshops. Slum-cleared plans were abandoned after 1945; restoration ran from the 1950s onward.
A 426m-long submarine assembly bunker with 4.5m concrete roofs, built 1943–1945 by 10,000–12,000 forced labourers and concentration-camp prisoners; over 1,600 died. Open-air memorial and documentation site since 2015. Tue–Sun 10:00–18:00.
The site of the Gestapo headquarters and the memorial to its victims on Am Wall, the boulevard laid out along the demolished 17th-century bastion ramparts. Bremen has laid more than 900 Stolpersteine — the brass memorial stones — since 2004.
Built on the quay where 7.2 million Europeans boarded ships for the New World between 1830 and 1974. Visitors follow one real emigrant's biography through reconstructed steerage decks and Ellis Island halls. European Museum of the Year 2007.
Bremen's medieval river port, in use from around 1250 until the harbour moved downstream in the 19th century; the name comes from the oak piles ('slait') driven into the Weser bank. Now a promenade of moored historic sailing ships.
Twelve centuries of Bremen history across a park of historic buildings, including the original Rathaus façade sculptures, the Haus Riensberg of 1768 and a Lower Saxon farmhouse. Tue 10:00–21:00, Wed–Sun 10:00–17:00, closed Monday.
Costumed performers play Bremen figures — the merchant, the emigrant agent, the coffee roaster — in restored Schnoor rooms; a long-term-unemployment reintegration project running since 2005. Tours in German every 30 minutes.
The 1902 Cotton Exchange, where Bremen set European cotton prices and still arbitrates global trade disputes, then the green Wallanlagen laid out in 1802 on the old star-shaped fortifications, with the Herdentorswallmühle of 1898.
Dug 1618–1623, this was the first man-made harbour in Germany, built when the Weser silted up at Bremen. The Museumshaven, the whaling and Greenland trade quays and the Schulschiff Deutschland line the basin 20 minutes north by RS1.