Bremen

The first association that comes to my mind when I think about Bremen is the Brothers Grimm fairy tale and the Soviet cartoon based on it, “Town Musicians of Bremen”. I didn’t know what to expect from this town, and it seems the town’s government builds their strategy on attracting tourists by exploiting the images of the Donkey, Dog, Cat, and Rooster—they are everywhere here, at least in the touristy downtown area.

Bremen undoubtedly is one of the most charming German towns I’ve visited. The most memorable places include the beautiful historic central train station, which was built in 1889, a scenic embankment, and the cozy, quaint old town.

Ruhrgebiet

Ruhrgebiet is an industrial region in the west of Germany. It consists of several towns (Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg, and others) that are so closely connected that it’s hard to tell where one ends and another begins. In the 19th and 20th centuries, this region was the centre of heavy industry, with major coal mines and steelworks that played a key role in Germany’s economic development. Since the mid-20th century, when coal mining and steelmaking began to lose their importance, the Ruhrgebiet entered a period of decline. Today, many factories and mines have been closed and converted into cultural centres, parks, and museums.

In general, it’s a boring, dismal and grey place. It’s literally grey, the number of sunny days here is smaller than the rest of Germany. I wouldn’t stay here for a long time, but abandoned mines and steelwork factories are very unusual and worth visiting. Besides that, I was lucky, and at the time of my trip, there was a Champions League match between Borussia Dortmund and Celtic. I couldn’t miss this game. I bought tickets from a reseller at three times the price, but the game was worth it-I got to see three times as many goals as a regular match, the game finished 7-1 :))

Munich

It wasn’t my first trip to Munich; this time I visited a couple of familiar places, for example, the stunning English Garden, and also I went to Scamfest Oktoberfest and to the Olympiapark and its surroundings.

I didn’t expect anything special from Oktoberfest, but anyway, it became the biggest disappointment of the trip. It’s just a bubble blown by the local marketeers, and there is no reason to visit this event! Crowds of drunken tourists, double prices for everything, and ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY nothing original: food, beer, entertainment—all of these things are the same as at any other German fest, or even at any other event in any other European town. And all these things are in a noisy crowd of drunken, vomiting tourists stumbling around in Lederhosen and Dirndls. Honestly, I felt more secure in the crowd of Celtic FC fans shouting chants and shaking the tram they were in, than at this Oktoberfest.

The Olympiapark is quite a beautiful place, though, just like any other well-maintained park, but I found the former Olympic Village and the block of panel houses next to it to be more interesting. It’s a cheap place and there are no other similar districts in Munuch. It’s mostly students living here now. Some photos can easily be confused with those taken in, let’s say, Chertanovo :)