Bremen or Hamburg??
 

We are going to be travelling in northern Germany in September and have about three days to fill--trying to decide whether to stay in Bremen or Hamburg--we will probably take a train ride to the other city for a day to look around in either case. Advice?

Hamburg - with a day trip to Lubeck.

I'm biased towards Bremen (lived there for a year), but it depends on what you're wanting to see/visit.

Bremen has some great sights - the old town (Schnoor Viertel)and Boettcherstarasse which survived WWII bombings, the Marktplatz (main market place) with Roland, a fantastic park - Burgerpark(in Summer it has jazz bands, beer gardens and places to wander, and is stunning in Autumn/Fall), the Dom (cathedral)which also survived WWII, Town Hall (great cellar underneath which has banquet nights), museums (the Kunsthalle - art hall, New Weserberg Museum - contemporary art), the harbour and the obligatory photo of the Stadtmusikanten (Bremen Town Musicians). There are also plenty of places in the vicinity to visit, depending on your interests. The artists' enclave of Worpswede is pretty and has a collection of original art pieces along the (small) main street. Oldenburg is another larger town to the west of Bremen and has a castle and a beautiful botanic garden. Or there's Cloppenburg not far away which has a smaller castle but an excellent "Museumsdorf" (museum village) which displays the style of houses and buildings of the region all in one place. There's even a windmill!

Hamburg also has a lot to see - harbour cruise (day or night)or Alster Cruise (the canals and waterways off the Alster river confluence with the Elbe), the old town walk, the huge fish market, museums (Kunsthalle, Museum of Arts and Crafts), the Reeperbahn area (which isn't as seedy as it once was, but still has areas which are men only).

Both are still deemed Hansastaedte (Hanseatic League States) so the harbour plays an important part in each of their histories. There are great food places to be found in each one as well. It's going to depend on how much you think you want to fill in three days, where you're coming from and going to next, and if you have a car (for excursions outside the city, esp Bremen) or are taking trains. The two cities are about 2hrs by train from each other.

With 3 days I'd go to Hamburg. While Bremen isn't unpleasant, one would have seen pretty much all of it in less than a day.

You can easily do a day trip from Hamburg, if you care. Trains take less than 1 hour (not 2 h as mentioned by the above poster). My preference for a daytrip would be Luebeck, though.

Last July, we did a day trip to Luebeck and really loved it, well worth the trip, and we did it from Cologne!

why do people say Luebeck is boring? Is there nothing there or is it just a quick walk around? I keep hearing that it is un-interesting and yet everyone/thing says to go there?!

Not at all, Luebeck is pretty (the beginning of the brick gothic architectural style on the northeastern coast), and there is enough to keep you going for a day at least, or you could combine with another brick gothic city (Wismar, Schwerin, etc) if there's not enough for you. The Holstentor (the most famous symbol of the city) has a museum in it, you can visit Café Niederegger (their marzipan is sold throughout Germany) and marvel at their cakes. There is also a church with a lift in it that takes you to a viewing platform where you can see the whole city (sorry, forgotten the name). Read Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks before you go. Not only is it set in Luebeck, but Thomas Mann's house is there and is able to be visited (helps to know who he is first - Nobel Prize-winning author), as is Guenther Grass's house.

I actually found more to do in Bremen but Bremen just doesn't have the same sort of architecture, and certainly not the streetscapes you get in Luebeck.

Lavandula