This guide covers six places in Bremen's old town: the Schlachte riverside and the Martini landing on the Weser, the Town Hall, the Town Musicians statue beside it, St Peter's Cathedral and the green ring of the Wallanlagen. Together they tell the story of a Hanseatic trading city, from its harbour on the river to the square where the council met and the old fortifications that became a park. All six are stops on our scavenger hunt, and you can see them in a single walk.
Town Musicians of Bremen
The Town Musicians are a donkey, a dog, a cat and a rooster standing on each other's backs, the fairy tale the Brothers Grimm published in 1819 in the second edition of their collection. The bronze group by the sculptor Gerhard Marcks was set up on 30 September 1953 beside the Town Hall, at first only on a one-year trial. There was an argument about the cost and the scale, and about why a Bremen artist had not been chosen. In 1955 the statue was bought for the city with donations, and it has stood in the same place ever since.
- The donkey's front legs, polished bright by hands: a custom says you get a wish if you hold them.
- The size: at about two metres the group is smaller than many people expect, and the funny thing about the tale is that the animals never actually reach Bremen.
Bremen Town Hall
The Town Hall on the Market Square was built as a Gothic hall around 1400, and between 1608 and 1612 it was given a new front in the Weser Renaissance style, with a large central bay and Flemish-style gables. The mason and architect Lüder von Bentheim was the leading artist of that rebuilding. Behind it, the New Town Hall was added between 1909 and 1913 by the Munich architect Gabriel von Seidl, roughly doubling the building in size.
In 2004 the Town Hall and the Roland statue in front of it were added together to the UNESCO World Heritage list. Inside, the Golden Chamber, a small room built into the upper hall in 1608, was redecorated in 1905 by Heinrich Vogeler in Art Nouveau style. Below the building, the Ratskeller holds what is said to be the oldest wine barrel in Germany, made in 1653.
- The figures of emperors and prince-electors on the facade, part of the Gothic town hall's original decoration.
- The Roland in front, the stone knight that stands for the city's rights and freedoms.
St Peter's Cathedral
The cathedral is dedicated to St Peter and stands on the Market Square next to the Town Hall. A wooden church was built here around 789, and a stone cathedral followed from 805; the two crypts are the oldest parts of today's building, the western crypt consecrated in 1068. The church is Romanesque in origin with Gothic additions. It became Protestant after the Reformation, and since 1638 it has been a Lutheran church.
The twin towers you see today were completed in 1892, during a great restoration that ran from 1888 to 1901. The south tower can be climbed for a view over the city. Under the nave is the Bleikeller, the lead cellar, where eight mummified bodies lie in glass-topped coffins; it has drawn visitors for more than 300 years.
- The Bleikeller, which has its own entrance and cannot be reached from the nave.
- The cathedral museum in a side chapel and the organs: organ music here is recorded as far back as 1244.
Schlachte
The Schlachte is the riverside promenade along the Weser, below the old town. The name comes from the Low German word for the posts driven into the bank to make a quay, and it is recorded as early as 1250. From the 17th to the early 19th century this was Bremen's harbour, where merchants loaded and unloaded their goods. The railway and new harbour basins in the second half of the 19th century ended its role as a port.
The quay became a pedestrian area in 1985, and much of it was redesigned between 1993 and 2000 as part of an Expo 2000 project called City by the River. Today it is a long row of beer gardens, restaurants and moored ships, and it is where the scavenger hunt begins.
- The Roland von Bremen, a replica of a 14th-century Hanseatic cog, one of the ships moored along the quay.
Martini landing (Martinianleger)
The Martini landing is the landing stage on the Schlachte directly in front of St Martin's Church (St. Martini). Ships moored along the Schlachte offer trips on the Weser up and down the river. The church above it is a late Gothic brick hall church, built as a basilica in the 13th century and turned into a hall church in the 14th. It burned out after a bombing raid on 5 October 1944 and was consecrated again in 1960 after rebuilding.
- The tall window in the south wall of St Martini, which remembers Joachim Neander, the hymn writer who preached here from 1679 to 1680.
Wallanlagen
The Wallanlagen are the park that rings the old town where the city walls and bastions once stood. The fortifications were finished in the 17th century, to designs by Johan van Valckenburgh. In 1802 the city decided to turn them into an English landscape garden, and the gardeners Christian Ludwig Bosse and Isaak Altmann laid it out between 1803 and 1811. The zigzag moat was given softer, curving banks, and it still runs through the park.
The park has been a protected monument since the 1970s and was restored between 1998 and 2002. It is the easiest place in central Bremen to get away from the streets, with paths along the water and bridges over the moat.
- The windmill at Herdentor, rebuilt in its old style after a fire in 1892; it ground grain until 1942 and now has a café.
How to see them in one walk
Start on the Schlachte and walk along the river to the Martini landing below St Martini. Turn into the Böttcherstraße, the narrow street that leads up to the Market Square, where the Town Hall, the Roland and the cathedral stand side by side. The Town Musicians stand at the west end of the Town Hall. From the cathedral, walk east to the Wallanlagen and follow the moat to the Kunsthalle, then come back towards the river through the small lanes of the Schnoor quarter.
See Bremen with World City Trail
Our Bremen scavenger hunt turns the old town into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops, from the Schlachte to the Schnoor, and all six places in this guide are stops, along with the Böttcherstraße, the Market Square, the Kunsthalle and the Schnoor. At each stop you solve a puzzle and learn a story, at your own pace.
There is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in Bremen, for people who prefer a different format.
Play the Bremen scavenger hunt →
Take the self-guided walking tour of Bremen →
Play the outdoor escape game in Bremen →
Facts checked in October 2026.