Germany Guide
Bremen
St Petri Dom
The indirect cause of the Markt's showpiece architecture is the medieval Dom directly east. The archbishops erected its 98m towers in the thirteenth century as a sermon on the absolute authority of divine power – only for the independent burghers to reply with their Roland. Incidentally, by tradition young men must sweep the steps while wearing top hat and tails and women polish the doorhandles while playing a barrel organ in penance for being unwed at thirty, a ritual maintained with booze-fuelled good humour. Within is an elegant sandstone organ gallery (1518) by Münster's Hinrik Brabender – a furiously bearded Charlemagne holds a contemporary model of the Dom with his bishop, Willehad, who converted the progenitor Saxon village on a sandbank in 787 AD. If the high choir above is open, you can ascend to see its painted ceiling and hunt out a church mouse carved on a south pillar, a joke by a stonemason. The Dom's eleventh-century forerunner survives in crypts at either end of the church, that in the east retaining a contemporary Enthroned Christ and Romanesque capitals that put pagan symbols of a wolf and snake cheek by jowl with a Christian flower of salvation. The star piece of Romanesque sculpture is the baptismal font (1220) in the west crypt. The Dom Museum (May– Oct Mon– Fri 10am–4.45pm; Nov– April Mon– Fri 11am–3.45pm; all year Sat 10am–1.30pm, Sun noon–4.45pm; free) contains more sculpture alongside a panel by Cranach, archbishops' silk robes and ceremonial crosiers. You can also ascend one tower for an aerial view of the Markt (same times; €1).
Beneath the southern cloister – a peaceful spot in the central city entered from outside the Dom – is the Bleikeller (Lead Cellar; same hours as museum; €1.40). A careless roofer, a Swedish general killed during the Thirty Years' War, a mystery countess and a student who lost a duel are among the eight mummies that gape from glass-topped coffins, desiccated by super-dry air on Bremen's highest sandbank, according to one theory. Whatever the truth, they've been a ghoulish attraction for at least three centuries.