Loyal readers will recall the Hanseatic League from our time in Estonia and Latvia and Poland. It was a confederation of merchant cities in and around northern Germany that basically monopolized trade in the North and Baltic Seas from the 13th to 15th Centuries.
Roland and the Rathaus
Bremen, on the North Sea side of Denmark, retains little of the original Hanseatic buildings but it is charming nevertheless. The statue of Roland, patron of the League, vies with Bremen’s other luminaries, it’s “Fab Four” made famous by the Brothers Grimm, a donkey, a dog, a cat and a rooster, no longer useful to their masters, who set off for Bremen to become musicians. The rest is history.