First excursions

Today we got back from our first excursions, a day trip to the town of Celle and a couple of days in the city of Bremen. Since October 2 is a national holiday (commemorating the unification of West and East Germany in 1990), Fernando decided to take off Monday and make a really long weekend. After deciding to take this little mini-vacation, we froze with the possibilities. Where to go? Prague? Paris? Bruges? Hamburg? We opted to start a bit more modestly, and get to know some of the Hannover region. Overall, our trips were a big success. We saw some beautiful medieval buildings, city squares, farmers’ markets and churches, and learned a thing or two about Germany’s complicated history. But we probably will profit more, in the long run, from what we learned about traveling in this country, and how to “sightsee” with a 15 ½ month old.

Trains can be fun!
For all of the time Fernando and I spend complaining about air travel with babies and toddlers, we really should give credit where it is due. Train travel with young ones is really not all that bad. Granted, our excursions weren’t too far away—Celle about 30 minutes and Bremen about 1 ¼ hours—but train travel with Leo bordered on fun. The train to Celle was packed since we were traveling on a Saturday. So we got stuck in the bicycle section and had to stand. But Leo had shiny bikes to look at, and a Spanish woman who had heard us talking started telling us all about her experience living in Germany, so the time flew by. The train both to and from Bremen, however, was pretty great. We had no trouble getting seats. The trains go fast and smoothly, so Leo could walk around a little bit between our seats facing each other. It is immaculately clean, so we let him entertain himself by putting Legos into the metal waste bin beneath the little drink tray, but he also had fun sitting in his own seat (and crawling on and crawling off every minute or so) like a big boy and looking outside at the scenery.

No castles for this crowd.
It turns out that there are tons of castles in Germany, so I was dead set on seeing one as soon as possible. So, we made sure to get to Celle on a day in which its castle was running tours. We arrived on time for the first tour, paid for our tickets, and parked our stroller near the gift shop. We weren’t feeling too thrilled about going on a tour conducted in German, but it was one of those deals where if you don’t do the tour, you only get access to about ¼ of the rooms. So we tried our best to blend in with the crowd of mostly older Germans all enjoying their long weekend, up the stairs to the first talking spot. The tour guide pointed to some unfinished sculptures, gestured several times towards different corners of the building, and every once in awhile caused everyone (including Leo) to laugh at her jokes. We had stuck a pacifier in Leo’s mouth to keep his own running commentary—in the form of giggles and shrieks--to a minimum, but to no avail. Yes, the only way to see it is that we were a nuisance to this group. We decided to throw in the towel when, trailing behind the crowd as it made its way to the next stop on the tour, we saw that everyone was bending over and putting on these enormous grey wool slippers over their shoes, in preparation for the viewing of something important. Needless to say, there were no toddler-size slippers. In fact, there were none remaining at all, which we took as the sign to banish ourselves once and for all. The good news is they gave us our money back. We felt a bit disheartened, thinking that castles and museums and other indoor, quiet, and serious points of interest just cannot really be experienced with kids Leo’s age. But then we went back to the town center, where there was a beautiful flower market and tons of people watching to do. Walking around is our favorite pace to see a new place, anyway, and for now, this is fine with Leo.

Compromise.
Bremen was a great first city to visit with Leo. Most of its appeal is the city itself—there are no world famous museums or castles to tempt us. The city center is very, very, very old, and around the same plaza there’s a church from 1050, a cathedral from the 1300’s, and a Rathaus, which is a town hall, that’s also O-L-D. Charlemagne stopped here for awhile. The city was a founding member of the Hanseatic league, which was like a medieval version of the EU. Its fame today is based mostly on being mentioned in a fable as the destination of a bunch of animals who want to become musicians in Bremen, though they never actually get to Bremen. It is also the home of Beck’s Beer. Wow, Fernando should really be telling this history part. Anyway, it is a port city on a river, and really quite beautiful. Also, it is a bit more edgy and artistic than Hannover. At least that’s the impression we got from the stores and the restaurants and people. We did not partake in much art or edginess. But even though walking around to these different spots is the best way to see Bremen, Leo could only handle being in the stroller for so long. To extend his periods of cooperating with us, at regular intervals we would let him loose to burn up some of his energy. We went to the playground a few times, walked along the pier that runs along the river, and played inside the Rathaus, which had been converted into a children’s science museum. But where he had the most fun was on the city square, where he would just streak along the cobblestones at full speed, or push the stroller in circles without much regard for anyone else wandering around.

So we learned that German trains are fast and reliable and not so horrible when traveling with kids. We also realized that as long as we are with Leo when visiting a new place, we will learn more about its playgrounds that its art collections, but that he’ll probably keep surprising us.